Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts

[Bob Bradlee]

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST), Mr Ian Primus wrote:

>Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task
>of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my

I picked up a bunch of very small ziplock parts bags at hamvention, I expect you can find them elsewhere. A sharpie note on the bag 
saves me the time of looking for my glasses or a reading glass to locate things in a bin.

Resistors are lumped together by third band and wattage and caps are stored by value range and sizes. 

A bit larger bag is a good way to keep a postit or a reduced data sheet with unusual items.
Again a sharpie note easily read without reading glasses, even if not needed now, will be appreciated in the distant future.

If static is a concern then use static bags or anti-static foam.

If you label well, it does not mater if you use parts bins or shoe boxes as long as there is an overall logic to the storage. 

Some questions and related thoughts you need to conceder: 

Are you sorting your collection for the future as a hobby ?
Parts or collectables, Once sorted how often do you expect to access them?
Parts or collectables, Collectables are displayed, parts are stored, most collectors have both.
Are you sorting your parts to improve productivity of your current activities ?

In fact, I tend to use a binary search pile method with ageing piles getting moved to boxes to be sorted someday as access to a given 
pile drops from day to day, to just occasional, or more like never. These boxes are identified by the topic of the origional pile or simply 
by the chronologic age of the pile when it was moved to the box or bin. A move every few years helps promote this process.

Do as I say and not as I do :-)

The other Bob