Electronic Parts Storage
Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:00 pm
I rediscovered Electronics back in 2005 after a long hiatus. At first I was just buying the odd small Arduino add on sensor board or two for different projects. Things ramped up in 2012, when the first Raspberry Pi was released. For a while I was starting to make my own add on boards using Vero boards, but things took off in 2015 after my first trip to China and really took off after the 2016 visit. Initially I was buying things very cheaply from DX.com and then my world exploded with Aliexpress.com. By 2017, I was in full stockup mode, with hundreds of purchases of electronic components per year, 0805 and 0603 resistors, capacitors, LEDs and Integrated Circuits etc.
So as you can imagine I have to store all this gear. At first it was very easy with one 7L plastic Bunnings tub, that turned into 2, 3 and 4 of them. In 2017 and 2018, this turned into larger 13L tubs for boxes 4, 5 and 6. In the Shenzhen markets I found lots of lovely pill style trays that where great for SMD components: These started piling up as well.
In 2018, I discovered cheap PCB Chinese manufacturing. This took off in 2019 as I was spending more time in China and working and sharing ideas with other international people. I have now started buying my parts from lcsc.com. This means I have a more reputable source of valid components.
Earlier this year Stephen linked me to Sayanee Basu YT Channel and she talks a lot about KiCAD and low and behold, she did a video on how she handles her parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_I5OCXYdss&t=429s. She has now moved beyond using spreadsheets and is using https://partsbox.com/ and has a separate video on this.
Back in 2016, I started tracking my purchases in Excel. the information tracked has grown over the years and even includes conditional formatting to show shipping time and overdue parts etc. Now all my purchases go into this system and I find it is great to be able to look up previous purchases and costs etc. I don't like the limitations of the Cloud based partbox, so I have added a location field to my spreadsheet and purchased 400 15cm x 23cm zip-lock plastic bags and some standardised 13L Bunnings tubs. The plastic bags fit nicely inside. I number each plastic bag 1-40+ and these repeat for each tub. I will colourise each tub and their label. I offset each masking tape bag label from the previous one - in blocks of 10. This makes finding each one a bit easier. Now I can do a spread sheet search and easily find the relevant box and bag for the part I need:
So as you can imagine I have to store all this gear. At first it was very easy with one 7L plastic Bunnings tub, that turned into 2, 3 and 4 of them. In 2017 and 2018, this turned into larger 13L tubs for boxes 4, 5 and 6. In the Shenzhen markets I found lots of lovely pill style trays that where great for SMD components: These started piling up as well.
In 2018, I discovered cheap PCB Chinese manufacturing. This took off in 2019 as I was spending more time in China and working and sharing ideas with other international people. I have now started buying my parts from lcsc.com. This means I have a more reputable source of valid components.
Earlier this year Stephen linked me to Sayanee Basu YT Channel and she talks a lot about KiCAD and low and behold, she did a video on how she handles her parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_I5OCXYdss&t=429s. She has now moved beyond using spreadsheets and is using https://partsbox.com/ and has a separate video on this.
Back in 2016, I started tracking my purchases in Excel. the information tracked has grown over the years and even includes conditional formatting to show shipping time and overdue parts etc. Now all my purchases go into this system and I find it is great to be able to look up previous purchases and costs etc. I don't like the limitations of the Cloud based partbox, so I have added a location field to my spreadsheet and purchased 400 15cm x 23cm zip-lock plastic bags and some standardised 13L Bunnings tubs. The plastic bags fit nicely inside. I number each plastic bag 1-40+ and these repeat for each tub. I will colourise each tub and their label. I offset each masking tape bag label from the previous one - in blocks of 10. This makes finding each one a bit easier. Now I can do a spread sheet search and easily find the relevant box and bag for the part I need: