Storage/organize IC's

[pcb rookie]

I have figured storage and organizing all my electronic components except for IC's. Anyone interested in sharing how you store them? Will help me and might also help others!

Thanks!

 

[fig]

I use anti-stat foam, trays, and large empty cookie tins.

Walkers....mmmm

 

[finebyfine]

I was able to snag a few of these component storage cabinets on sale and keep ICs on foam in drawers ... I realize having these is essentially cheating for purposes of this question though

 

[giovanni]

Are antistatic foam or bags necessary? I just bought one of those bins too and I have caps and resistors in small antistatic bags, but I ran out of small bags… can I just puy them in the bins without condoms?

 

[Betty Wont]

Are antistatic foam or bags necessary? I just bought one of those bins too and I have caps and resistors in small antistatic bags, but I ran out of small bags… can I just puy them in the bins without condoms?

I only keep them for static sensitive components like ICs, especially CMOS. Your passives don't need anti-static.

 

[PapaBear]

If they come in static tubes I just label the tube and leave them, the rest go into foam and drawers

 

[giovanni]

Reviving this old thread. I read that some people use antistatic bags for transistors as well. I think that may be overkill, what do you guys think?

 

[Feral Feline]

Anti-static bags aren't overkill for MOSFETs.

The amount of static here is really bad, I get shocked every time I close the car door and nearly every time I kiss my wife — I was thinking of starting a thread about how people deal with anti-static measures, I'm sure my simple grounded wrist-band is barely adequate.

 

[giovanni]

What about JFET or BJT? I have these large antistatic bags from mouser that won’t fit in any of my storage solutions and I would love to get rid of them. Or just buy tiny ones if needed. On that note, the pink Tayda bags are probably not antistatic? I have tons of them.

 

[Feral Feline]

I've not had trouble with static for JFET or BJT, BUT according to everything I've read they can be susceptible to ESD.

JUNCTION FIELD EFFECT TRANSISTOR DEGRADATION CAUSED BY ELECTROSTATIC DISCHARGE. (Technical Report) | OSTI.GOV

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information

www.osti.gov

Can BJT transistors be damaged by static electricity?

I'm wondering whether they should be stored in anti-static bags or not?

electronics.stackexchange.com

I've zapped a few MOSFETs even being careful with my wrist-band. I'm thinking of getting an anti-static floor-mat &/or one for the bench — the static here (Western GWN) is insane compared to how little I had to deal with it in Hong Kong.

PS: I love when reports (like in the first link) post "This Page Intentionally Left Blank" — well once you put that explanation on it, it's not blank.

 

[giovanni]

Damn I’m gonna have to get some tiny bags then! The static is not that bad here on the east coast but I don’t want to chance it.

 

[benny_profane]

On that note, the pink Tayda bags are probably not antistatic? I have tons of them.

Not sure—there are definitely pink anti-static bags, but the tayda bags are different than the ones explicitly labeled as such. Compare them to the bags that stomp box parts uses.

 

[finebyfine]

I started monitoring the humidity in my workspace over the winter and as a result I’ve switched to using the DIP plastic tubes that places like Digikey and Mouser ship in for ICs. I was very surprised by how low humidity it was, and how little I physically felt the difference between normal and more likely to result in static.

Newark, if I recall correctly, had huge lengths of them. I just cut them to fit into my drawers. Everything else but passives go into Tayda style anti-static additive bags. If they’re ICs I try to use the good black ESD foam. In a perfect world they’d go into the ones with shielding but they just aren’t flexible enough to be useful for storage outside of smaller ones for things like FV-1s.