Electronics Forum / Basics / September 2006

Hi, Phaeton.  I use large conductive foam sheets, and store them
numerically in fold-open thick card stock backings to which the
conductive foam is glued.  Then they can be shelved like large, thin
books.

Of course, I've spent a while in manufacturing, and had access to these
conductive foam sheets.  If you're looking to buy them retail, they're
pretty expensive.

Another possibility is storing them in the conductive tubes they're
shipped in, but again, that's more a matter of having access.  Believe
it or not, you can buy them retail, or you can scrounge around for
them.

Either way, you really should store them numerically.  Much easier to
find what you need.  If you get serious about this, you could also put
min/max numbers on the front of the container to make a note if you
need to reorder.

Good luck
Chris

On 22 Jul 2006 20:41:14 -0700, in message
<1153626074.139987.249180@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, "phaeton"
<blahbleh666@hotmail.com> scribed:

That's how I'd do it.  That way, you get consistent behavior in your
designs.  When you dream up some bizarre circuit, find the assortment that
fits, then design your support circuitry appropriately.

I've tried all sorts of schemes but ended up just sorting numerically,
that seems the best compromise. I sort in numbered blocks depending on
how many trays I have. e.g. 7400 to 7409, 7410 to 7420, etc
HC, HCT, LS, AC etc all get mixed in together. Generally these days
you'd use HC for almost everything, with maybe AC for fast stuff.

Surface mount parts will generally get their own sorted rack, unless
you have deep racks that fit full tubes.

Grouping together by function can be a pain sometimes. Stick a
laminated function sheet on the side of the component rack if you want
a quick reference for this.

Conductive foam sheets (cut to size to fit the tray) allow you to
categorise within each tray if you want.

Dave :)

I have collected a bunch of plastic parts cabnets over the years and
have each drawer numbered from 1-xxx. When I get some new ICs,
transistors, or whatever, I put them on some antistatic foam and stick
it them the next available drawer. Serveral years ago I wrote a little
DOS program so that I can keep track of what is in each drawer. Using
the program I can very quickly lookup a part number or search for a
keyword, or a parameter in the case of discrete semicinductors. This
makes it very easy to maintain an inventory of what I have on hand and
actually be able to find something.

Mike

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The odds of a single modest length protein randomly forming is approx
1 in 10^260. By comparison the number atoms in the known universe has
been estimated at 10^80 atoms.
Figues are from the writings of Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick in 1981.

At work, I went through all the components in storage and organized them.

I just tossed all the 74xx junk, loose in small drawers, in order of
increasing number, showing no distinction to letters.  I figure it's
narrowed down enough that you can dig through the selection to find the
right letters you need.

I also put all CMOS (4000 and 74(H)C) seperately into foam, if not
particularly well organized ATM.  It's not real nice to put 74HC stuff away
from 74**, but it saves a lot of static trouble.

I also sorted some things by function, like another drawer has lots of
linear stuff, another has mostly power transistors, another has mostly
germanium power transistors, etc...

Tim

Thanks for all the replies, everyone.  As suggested I think I'm going
to sort them numerically, after all.  I just need to decide if I'm
going to pay attention to the letters in the numerical name and sort
those out, or lump em all together.

I do have some conductive foam, but I don't know that I've got enough
for *all* of these.  Not all 7400s are static sensitive though, right?
Just the stuff with the "C" in the name?  I also have some 'rails' or
'tubes'.  I used to have a bunch of them from prev. orders but I don't
know what happened to them all 0_o.  These didn't come with anything
nifty, just 100 pieces all jumbled together in a bag:

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId
=10001&catalogId=10001&productId=17996

That picture right there is exactly how they arrived. Makes me a little
nervous about ESD that way, but hopefully they'll be ok.  If I don't
have enough foam I'll just go to a local Radio Shack and grab my
ankles^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpick some up.

I presume that you cannot buy 4000-series assortments because they are
way old, obsoleted, and slowly going away?

Actually, I had my grandmother knit me some clothes and blankets out of
steel wool.  Works great at blocking all those CIA and Alien mind
control signals.  ;-)

-phaeton

By part number.

Yes. Nothing else makes sense.

Absolutely not. No help at all when populating a board.

If I have anything that's not HC - it's likely to end up in the same tray
as the HC version with a note e.g. HC/HCT 7400.

Graham