Parts holder?

Community PCB Design
1

Can you suggest something to hold components such as resistors, caps, ICs while you are doing board assembly? Something that has some compartments in it to avoid mixing of parts. Any idea? Thanks

2

A cheap fishing tackle box can work well. Just note that they can be a source of ESD so plan accordingly if you have sensitive ICs.

-Bill

3

McMaster-Carr sells conductive trays with compartments. http://www.mcmaster.com/#static-control-pans/=6xo6yw and select page 1721.

Jon

4

You didn’t mention style of parts ie. leaded or SMT. I use 95% SMT now, so I picked up a bunch of cheap seven day pill cases from Harbor Freight and I use those to hold parts of various values.

I have one for caps, one for resistors and a third for inductors and other odd passives. On the front, I used a sharpie to mark the values for each compartment. This is nice for when I need to change the value, just a little alcohol to take off the sharpie and re-mark it.

5

For SMD parts I use 35mm film canisters. They have a cap and store nicely in shoe box or cigar box. You can also lable the canister (not the lids they tend to get switched around) so that you can easily identify the parts.

For wire leaded parts I use a multiple compartment box like sold for crafts or fishing… KMART had some of these several years ago that had a carrier and stacked 4 boxes inside the carrier

6

I like 1oz shot glasses (made of glass) for a few reasons:

  1. Heavy enough to avoid accidental spillage.

  2. I can set up an assembly area precisely with the number I need

  3. It’s easy to get one piece out since the inside bottom is rounded. For tiny parts: poke with tweezers, pull up along side, grab at lip.

  4. Easy to pour excess parts back into storage

  5. I already have a ton of them

  6. After washing, a nice way to celebrate a successfully assembled project. If it didn’t work, a nice way to temporarily forget my troubles. :lol:

I also use them for basic through-hole components since I pre-trim the leads for neater looking solder jobs. Also, I find 1.5oz glasses of the same size don’t have as nicely-rounded bottoms making me have to pay more attention while grabbing tiny SMT parts.