Coin envelopes for SMT part, where?

practical for storing SMT. Much less space than

not as airtight but that should be fine.

name it. None had any, most didn't even know

Staples?

Cheers

practical for storing SMT. Much less space than

not as airtight but that should be fine.

name it. None had any, most didn't even know

Well, not quite. The smallest they have is 2-1/4" by 3-1/2", quite large, doesn't fit into parts bin drawers. The coin envelopes I've seen were a little over an inch square AFAIR, and much thinner than Brown Kraft. But it was a very long time ago and in Europe.

practical for storing SMT. Much less space than

not as airtight but that should be fine.

name it. None had any, most didn't even know

doesn't fit into parts bin drawers. The coin

than Brown Kraft. But it was a very long time

Ok, 7/8x7/8 smallest size.

Cheers

I have a box of 500, #3 coin envelopes, size 2.5 x 4.25 inches. They're made by Westvaco/Columbian Envelopes, product ID CO545.

They're great. You can write the description and stock number on the front, scribble any measurement notes, and tape the Digikey label or whatever to the back. Packing density is a lot better than film cans or drawers or whatever.

John

practical for storing SMT. Much less space than

not as airtight but that should be fine.

name it. None had any, most didn't even know

Get the bigger ones, 2.5 x 4.25, so you can write lots of stuff on them.

John

Staples has 2x3 clear poly bags with a white writable area on them; they fit into *my* parts drawers just fine :-)

Not sure if putting parts in non-anti-static bags is such a good idea. I usually leave them in their tape, in units of 10 or so.

I do the same, with a smaller size...#2 probably. I'll often put a drawing of the pinout on the envelope, too, for the parts complicated enough to warrant it. The size I use stack very nicely three rows wide in old Daytimer plastic boxes that we used to have a lot of around, till everyone went to using Outlook to keep their calendars. I much prefer the kraft paper ones to the flimsy tiny ones; the kraft ones are much easier to file and to handle.

It is worthwhile to check that the corners are sealed well enough to hold the parts you'll be putting in them. If you're into 0201 resistors and capacitors, it may be better to use the thin envelopes, though I'd still put them into kraft envelopes for uniform storage since many parts are too big (or I have too many of them) to put everything into tiny envelopes.

Cheers, Tom

I guess you're not into origami paper art... :P

Perhaps get some heavy paper,a glue stick and scissors and make a bunch. Maybe pay some kid $2.00 to make'm. Don't forget to say that it'll be fun to do :P

D from BC

Here is some 1 11/16" x 2 3/4" $21 for 500

Try this link:

Good Luck Jim

A customer I do some work for has been storing parts in the Digi-key (et al) bags, which is costing some serious time (thus money). It's quite tedious to find the right bag, wiggle the strip of SMT tape out of the bag, get a few parts, and wiggle it back in. I suggested going to test tubes or culture tubes - space for labels (or a flag label if you need a lot of info) and easy access - pop the lid off, get out the part tape, pop it back in, pop the top on. Easy to organize in racks. Easy to see what and roughly how many are in it. Many different sizes available. If you're olde fashioned, you could even color code the resistor tubes - and can certainly use color coded lids for different categories of parts. If you're very organized, you could use barcodes and maintain an up-to-date inventory with stock levels and reordering reminders before you run out.

He has not gone for the idea as yet, perhaps because any effect is somewhat indirect (if it takes me, or him, more time, I presume it's being rebilled to the end customer, as it's not a production environment) so saving time is not directly saving him money - but it would help productivity. Despite billing by the hour, I dislike inefficiency and prefer to spend my hours as productively as possible.

At home I'm still in the stone age of through-hole parts, but I'll probably get a pile of test/culture tubes as I move my own projects to SMT.

You might look at Stamp Collecting and their Supply houses for such envelopes. Or for other gear to hold them in sheets.

Robert H.

Be wary of ESD from glass or plastic that's not antistatic. Officially even paper envelopes aren't approved, though in our relatively moist climate here they haven't given me trouble that I can identify.

You can get antistatic plastic vials roughly equivalent to test tubes. The ones we use have captive snap-on lids. They are MUCH less space-efficient than the coin envelopes though. A recipe-box size container will easily hold a complete set of E24 resistor or capacitor values over six or seven decades, likely in a couple different sizes if you're not going for many hundreds of each value.

Cheers, Tom

For stuff on tape, I've found a couple of solutions - film negative binder pages, and similar products with smaller pockets used for storing baseball/cigarette card collections

You can always try the gang at rec.collecting.coins to see where they buy theirs. :-)

Most parts that actually care about ESD are in antistatic tape. I leave parts in the tape, it's much easier to deal with than loose parts. I'm not sure how much difference having the antistatic tape packed in an antistatic bag actually makes, .vs. packing the antistatic tape in a non-antistatic tube. I do know that the prices on antistatic tubes are vastly higher than the prices for normal tubes, which is not very surprising.

Resistors, inductors and capacitors are generally not very picky about ESD, and come packaged from the distributor in tape in regular polyethylene bags, which are not antistatic. That would appear to imply that antistatic packaging is a waste of money for those parts.

Packing density loses to ease of organization for actually using the things - If you're trying to squeeze the maximum amount of material into a briefcase for traveling, fine - for bench use, laying hands on what you want without thumbing through 100 tiny envelopes wins, IMHO.

I use film canisters. They're free, and there is plenty of room for a big sticky label.

Cheers Terry

Le Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:08:24 +0000, Joerg a écrit:

Not quite what you've asked but I ordered some of these and am very pleased with them. Also exists ready filled.

Le Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:19:50 +1200, Terry Given a écrit:

I thought about this once but try to store the full E96 range. That might be OK though for big items like ICs, Al or Ta caps, DPAKs, small SMPS inductors and such. I find the lidded enclosures I posted below very practical when it comes to use them and do some real work. And $25-35 for 128 values is a quite reasonable price. I bought them stuffed be cause I wanted to spare me the time to fill them.

I guess the ideal thing is a combination of these for the everyday parts plus some film canisters for the big parts and some coin envelopes for the small infrequently used ones.

DJ Delorie hath wroth:

I got tired of sequentially looking inside the coin bags. So, I switched to ESD pink plastic bags from:

and have lived happily ever after. There are other sources:

Ebay also lists quite a few odd sizes.

For non ESD sensitive devices (passive components) in bulk, I just use grocery store "zip lock" storage bags.