Kev wrote:
Okay, we've all got ICs all over the place. How do you store/catergorize & organize your ICs?
I prefer to keep mine in tubes but then I've got 100s of tubes.
I use some of the small drawers for smaller quantities & smaller chips but once I set up a label for each drawer I find a need to change things (additons).
I've seen one tech work bench where he took the Wico catalog & lableled everything with drawer numbers. Handy but not intuiative.
Simply number drawers from 1-100 (or whatever). Then take a recipe card box, and some 3x5 index cards. On each card, write a part number (74LS00) and a drawer number (13 - or maybe 13C, if subdivided). That way, you can move things around easy, combine 7400's with some MPS-A13's (anything in not the same package for easy visual identification), and maximize your storage space. The cards are sorted in the box by whatever method you'd like (we'd do a section of transistors, section of IC's, section of diodes, with each one being alphabetically sorted) I guess the data could be on a PC too, but I don't want to have to boot up my machine by the bench just to find a part. We'd write other information on each card, as in the last price we paid for something from Mouser/Digikey/MCM/etc, and any other useful information (ECG cross reference...) When I worked in service, we found this was the absolute best method of storing transistors and IC's. For resistors, caps and zeners we went ahead and filed them in drawers marked with value ranges. Just my 2c.