How about a kit of common 0805 resistor and capacitor values? Other people sell these (smtzone.com), but they’re 'spensive. I always end up buying small amounts of the common 0805 components I need, and my small parts drawers are becoming a gradual attempt at building a histogram of those components.
Yes.
Actually, I’d also like to see a thru-hole kit for these parts as well (1/4 watt resistors). The key here is clever packaging; make it simple 'n cheap, but easy to locate the value you’re looking for. The “box of little plastic envelopes” you get from Digi-key is pretty clumsy.
My ideal would be a stack of 4x6 cards I could just flip through to find the right part. Parts would be tacked onto them (um, “somehow”), and the 2" stack would be easy to tuck away in a drawer. I don’t have room on my desk for the big box of plastic drawers.
Meta suggestion: Make the packaging design a contest / class project for design students at a local University (UC Boulder, etc). For a small prize, ($1K or so) I’ll bet you’d get some clever suggestions. Or maybe post the contest on your home page.
I’ll forward on the Idea to the proper people.
You can find SMD cap/resistor assortments on ebay with reasonable prices. The sellers seem to be pretty well established. It worked fine for me to jump-start my parts assortment for ad-hoc projects.
I’d like to second the Original Poster’s idea, Seems like a good fit with the beginner parts kit and resistor kit y’all carry, maybe follow that model and break it up into two kits? I know I’d buy one (or two) as I’m just getting into SMD stuff.
-Lex