DIY component storage boxes

[Karen O]

I'm not quite sure where this posting belongs. I'll understand if it gets moved.

Pamphonica's recent thread on valve storage boxes (in 'Parts, sets and information offered') reminded me of a little recycling venture I had going back in the 70s. My school's computer club went weekly to Warwick Uni where we would bash out our latest software marvels on punch card machines. Before leaving, I would stuff my satchel with discarded cards and take them home for use in craft activities. Lilliputian houses were one of my lines

Another application I found for them was little storage boxes for my component store, meagre though my collection was at that time. The cards were coloured - pastel shades - and I used this as a component key. Pink was for capacitors.

My, I'm a sad case, aren't I?

[Reelman]

Nothing wrong with that Karen, you were only making use of something that in those days would have gone to landfill or be burnt.

Somewhere I still have some blank cards from work. We still had a card reader online to at least 1989.

Peter

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by Karen O

My, I'm a sad case, aren't I?

Perhaps not as 'sad' as me. I have 3 brand new boxes of punch cards and a partially used one, a hand punch (which I can still use quite rapidly) and an optical card reader (admittedly in need of an overhaul).

There are a few people who collect cards with different logos, explanatory text, etc on them. I sent one of them a few of mine as they were ICT (International Computers and Tabulators -- one of the companies that ended up part of ICL) and thus not well-known across the Pond.

[vidjoman]

I used the 'punchings' as roof tiles on buildings made for my OO gauge railway.

[emeritus]

I found that the card made excellent dart flights!

I still have some from University marked "ALGOL" (the language we were programming in), and a stack of unmarked cards salvaged from the Marconi site we vacated in 2001. I think they had been used by the Marconi Marine stores.

For component boxes I use the backing card from A4 pads. Before I retired, I used to be able to intercept them before they went in the recycle bin, and still have a good stock.

[Boater Sam]

Back in my youth I collected OXO tins for the bigger components, now collectable of course.
The resistors were stored in a mega block of match boxes glued together with a card handle stapled to the front. There must have been 150 or so, each value in its own box. Mostly resistors stripped from old TV chassis and carefully checked.
Sadly all went either when I left home or when I cleared my late mother's house out some years later.
Wish I had it all now............

Sam.

[G6Tanuki]

I'm currently storing various components in the plastic 'pots' in which Tesco sell spices and herbs. Stacked in the same sort of way honeycomb-cells work and wrapped with duct-tape a 'block' of them sits nicely on its side and provides what amounts to a set of small circular pigeon-holes.

[Dave Moll]

Like Sam, I had a block of matchboxes (with brass split pins for knobs) for storing small items, though the block was wrapped in Sellotape rather than glued together - and was never fitted with a handle. In fact, I still have it - see below!

In my youth before my now-long-deceased father gave up smoking a pipe, both he and I used his tobacco tins for storage of all sorts of components and hardware once he had used all the tobacco contained therein. In fact, I still have a few Exmoor Hunt tins (albeit somewhat rusty now) containing a few odds and ends.

For holding larger quantities, my stores of resistors are now stored in a cupboard full of the plastic tubs which previously contained Chinese takeaways.

For the big stuff - like various connecting cables - I have used the plastic crates from which shops sold loose mushrooms. As these are now starting to split from frequently being stacked and unstacked as I search for suitable cables, I may, however, resort to buying the more sturdy storage boxes sold by the likes of Wilko - though my preference is always to repurpose packaging items that would otherwise be thrown away.

[MrBungle]

I used home made cardboard boxes for a number of years. They were folded and stapled together and inserted into trays which were made from thicker card. Very cheap. This was until I had children. My 2 year old at the time managed to pull the tray containing them and a couple of thousand resistors off the table and they went everywhere costing me a day of sorting out time. I now use large high quality ziplock bags containing smaller ziplock bags because you can't knock them over. There is no wasted volume either so they take up less space.

[Martin G7MRV]

I use butter tubs. Most small components store in good numbers in 500g tubs, and larger parts (pots, D-types, RF connectors etc) in the 1kg tubs. Stronger than icecream tubs! I found Sainsburys tubs best - they are well shaped, stack well, the lids fit tightly, and they mark well with a sharpie.

My resistors (those that are sorted anyway) live in a set of translucent compartment trays from the local Home Bargains, I think intended to store sewing items, cottons etc

[dseymo1]

I have a variety of repurposed storage containers. Like Dave Moll, I find takeaway tubs useful, but for rather larger items I use 5l containers with part of one narrow side cut away. Lined up on a shelf, they have the advantage of moulded-in handles.

[mark_in_manc]

If you have kids (or grand-kids) small enough to enjoy the excitement of those multi-packs of breakfast cereals where one portion of coco-pops or whatever comes in its own mini packet, then you can offset the environmental catastrophe this represents by using the little cardboard boxes to keep things in.

I tried to keep pleasures simple for my kids...I think I'm losing traction and I'm not sure it's going to work longer term...

(I've yet to find a use for the multiple layers of cardboard and plastic packaging encountered when unwrapping a certain brand of seldom-bought 'exceedingly over-packaged cakes'. )

[Boater Sam]

Wine boxes are very sturdy and easy to empty!
I store transformers and other heavy lumpy things in them.
I also am a fan of spread tubs.
Sam.

[dseymo1]

And, of course, supermarket tote boxes. Mine were acquired legitimately in the early days of home delivery, before they realised that it might be a good idea to have them back!

[TonyDuell]

A word of warning (learnt the hard way). Many food containers are designed to degrade quite quickly (after all they are not intended to be re-used). They turn very brittle and into flakes of plastic. So you find your carefully-sorted components go everywhere when you pick up the container, and are mixed with crumbling plastic.

Re-using cardboard boxes should be OK though.

[ajs37]

A very long time ago, I used to smoke Golden Virginia - and I used the tins to store components - mainly resistors - very effective and I still have a few around here somewhere....

[TonyDuell]

An advantage of tins is that they should provide some protection against static discharge. I would still put MOS devices in conductive foam (if only to stop them being zapped when you put them in the tin and one pin touches before the rest) though.

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

A word of warning (learnt the hard way). Many food containers are designed to degrade quite quickly (after all they are not intended to be re-used). They turn very brittle and into flakes of plastic. So you find your carefully-sorted components go everywhere when you pick up the container, and are mixed with crumbling plastic.

It's normally UV radiation that causes them to degrade in this way. There shouldn't be a problem if you store them in a cupboard, but there may well be if you store them on open shelves, particularly if they are in direct sunlight for part of the day.

I use a mixture of biscuit tins, 1L ice cream containers and takeaway boxes, though I'm not very well organised so hardly an example of best practice. I find marge tubs to be a bit flimsy.

[ionburn]

I remember these computer punched cards. I noticed one lying around recently in my mother's house. This would have been one of mine from the 1970's. I wonder how may people would know what it is now?

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

It's normally UV radiation that causes them to degrade in this way. There shouldn't be a problem if you store them in a cupboard, but there may well be if you store them on open shelves, particularly if they are in direct sunlight for part of the day.

Counterexample: This afternoon I sorted out some of the biscuit tins I used to store components in over 30 years ago. One of them contained nuts and bolts in little plastic cream pots with lids (meaning said pots had been sold containing a dairy product if there's any doubt). As I picked them out they broke up in my fingers. And they had spent much of their life in an opaque tin.