How do you organize and track your components?

Fuzz Wizard

Fuzz Wizard

Member
Lately my collection of comonents and projects has been expanding rapidly, and I’ve found myself running out of drawers for everything. I’ve also had to order components I’ve forgotten more than once. How do you all store your compants, and keep track of what you have?
 
I'm frankly pretty terrible at this, but I'll try to help a bit.

For resistors, I organize them by value range, so...
100r, 1k, 10k, 100k, 1m all together, 47r, 470r, 4k7, 47k, 470k, all together, etc. Probably an easy way to get mixed up with parts a full decade or more off spec, but I've not had problems yet. Transistors sorta go by type and series, with my drawers in one parts organizer being labeled:
BC108MISC NPNJ2012N5457J113
MPSA18PN2907BC549BC550
2N39042N3906PN2222
NOS/VOS PNPNOS/VOS NPN2N50872N50882N5089

I'm interested to see what others have to say, bc I have a ton of drawers. that are labeled misc 1, misc 2, etc, and they're just complete nonsense
 
Mentaltossflycoon said:
Sometimes I stop and look at my terrible disorganized mess and say "fuuuuuck." Then I spark a doobie and go back to what I was doing.
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I keep most of my stuff in the garage we had a garage cleaning time today. Wife says to me you are in charge of that (pointing at my disaster). I cleaned up a bunch of empty tayda/stompbox parts bags. And then just kind of stared at it for 5 minutes not sure where to begin. That said I do use those baseball card sleeves for resistors and capacitors diodes in 3 ring binders that actually works pretty good just leave them in the baggy they come in if its 40ish or less, I keep the values I buy 100 of in the "pile" and pull them out when I need to replenish the bag. IC's I have little "bins" that they some times make it back into ussually I have to dig through the aforementioned empty baggies to find the IC or transistor I'm looking for, which I then ussually can't find, I rip the entire bench apart until I find it. Last time I cleaned/organized my bench I believe it was inspired by my inabilty to find my tl071's.
 
I utilize the floor full of pink tayda Russian nesting dolls method. For example I have a large bag labeled semiconductors with medium bags labeled ics, diodes, germs, etc. I"ll set out several boards, dump a bag on my left and go for a swim. For some reason I can keep my garage and woodworking areas cleanish but pedalry is different. I build in a corner of my laundry/ rehearsal room so perhaps it's that I'm the only one who could care so I don't. I admit It is annoying when I just need a couple resistors or something.
 
These are about 55 bucks at lowes, free shipping. I have three more of these out in my shop full of 1 to 5 watt resistors, and 500v caps and such for amps. I just bought the one behind the one in the front and printed more labels. I put the part number at the bottom when possible (I have a lot of stuff I bought 2 decades ago I have no idea where they came from). But, HEY I'M RETIRED and that's what old guys do, right? lmao...
Organizers.jpg
 
Like RetiredUnit1, I have storage boxes. Each little box is split into three, so I may have 1K/1.5K/1.8K resistors in a single box (separated) of course.

I have two smaller ones for resistors, diodes, and transistors.
Then there are two larger ones which have capacitors, ICs, pots, sorted Ge transistors, switches.

I test before putting my parts away (at least the resistors and Ge transistors) so I can grab as required without worrying.
 
szukalski said:
Like RetiredUnit1, I have storage boxes. Each little box is split into three, so I may have 1K/1.5K/1.8K resistors in a single box (separated) of course.

I have two smaller ones for resistors, diodes, and transistors.
Then there are two larger ones which have capacitors, ICs, pots, sorted Ge transistors, switches.

I test before putting my parts away (at least the resistors and Ge transistors) so I can grab as required without worrying.
Click to expand...

Yup that's how I do it too.
 
Space is very limited for me and I went the cheap route. All my resistors for soldering are organized in a cardboard box. 0-25k on one side and 25k+ on the other. Most of my capacitors (polarized or non polarized) go into bead organizers I found at Walmart. Transistors and IC chips go into pill organizers from Walmart. Everything else (pots, sockets, tools, etc) made its way to plastic drawers sitting on my workbench. I’m not that ashamed to show off my messy workbench since many others are messy like myself plus I’m (always) in the middle of a project. Oh, yea, I also build a small shelf to sit on top of my bench. I can’t spread out so I decided to spread up 😂
 

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BuddytheReow said:
Space is very limited for me and I went the cheap route. All my resistors for soldering are organized in a cardboard box. 0-25k on one side and 25k+ on the other. Most of my capacitors (polarized or non polarized) go into bead organizers I found at Walmart. Transistors and IC chips go into pill organizers from Walmart. Everything else (pots, sockets, tools, etc) made its way to plastic drawers sitting on my workbench. I’m not that ashamed to show off my messy workbench since many others are messy like myself plus I’m (always) in the middle of a project. Oh, yea, I also build a small shelf to sit on top of my bench. I can’t spread out so I decided to spread up 😂
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I have always felt that organization is the one of the keys to consistent successful builds. Like many I use storage organizers. These are all garage sale/free hand me downs. I like to keep caps sorted by type and values. Resistors are usually two values per drawer. Everything always has it's place. I have a par level for all components. I like to keep 30 resistors in each drawer and 50 of the most commonly used values. I usually have 50 or so electro caps, 30 ceramics, a handful of rants and a minimum of 20 of any value film cap. I keep the most common diodes and transistors packed to the top and less common ones get filled as used. Pots and switches I keep fewer of because you don't always know what you will need but I do have a decent amount at all times. I don't do spread sheets, I'm old school. When I make an order I look at everything and make a note of what looks low and order what I think I need. Of course over flow goes into the shoebox organizer.
IMG_20221121_062255_831.jpg IMG_20221121_062300_675.jpg IMG_20221121_062305_539.jpg
 
I use parts organizers and label everything.

I take inventory and order all parts for the month’s anticipated builds. I keep a bunch of commonly used parts on hand for breadboarding whimsy. Also have a bad habit of collecting too many germanium transistors.
 
I got a few cases like these years ago. TBH I would not particularly recommend...they have removable/customizable dividers which seems nice except the fit/tolerances are pretty rough so you end up with a lot of compartments having gaps under the dividers and components would slide into a nearby box or something and end up creating a big headache. I went through and sealed the bottom of each compartment's edges with hot glue, which was also a pain, although now there is no "cross-contamination".

Beyond that I went and labeled each compartment with the part and value in it, which is also just fine except that I labeled it based on what I had on hand at the time; since then I have added more components that I didn't have at that time and now there's no spot for them - for instance I might've had a 470r and a 510r and labeled spots for those accordingly. Then bought some 500r's which would naturally go in between those two, but there's no space there. So it sort of works for most common values but anything oddball or that I didn't have on hand at the time just kind of goes into a generic "Extras" space. I would really like to replace with a "drawer" type organizer for my desk but haven't got around to it.

I do also keep a big component inventory spreadsheet which helps but I don't update it frequently enough after ordering new parts / using parts on a build so truthfully it's also not terribly valuable, lol.
 
My resistors and most caps are in straight bins sorted from lowest to highest value. When populating a board I pull the resistor or cap bin out and thumb through it like a card catalog. Pull up the bag behind the one I need to hold the spot open until I return the bag I'm using. If I run out I can put the bag in the reorder bin so I know what I used up.
 
Guardians of the analog said:
I have always felt that organization is the one of the keys to consistent successful builds. Like many I use storage organizers. These are all garage sale/free hand me downs. I like to keep caps sorted by type and values. Resistors are usually two values per drawer. Everything always has it's place. I have a par level for all components. I like to keep 30 resistors in each drawer and 50 of the most commonly used values. I usually have 50 or so electro caps, 30 ceramics, a handful of rants and a minimum of 20 of any value film cap. I keep the most common diodes and transistors packed to the top and less common ones get filled as used. Pots and switches I keep fewer of because you don't always know what you will need but I do have a decent amount at all times. I don't do spread sheets, I'm old school. When I make an order I look at everything and make a note of what looks low and order what I think I need. Of course over flow goes into the shoebox organizer.
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Like this, except all the little bags are store in bigger bags separated by component type. If I notice I am out or running low, I add it to my Tayda cart.
 
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