Do you own a bunch of different value resistors, if so how do you organize them?

rwgast_logicdesign

Ok im trying to straighten up my work area and this is a problem thats really been bugging me lol!! Every time I order resistors I get multiples of 10, or I go buy a huge 13 dollar Radio Shack variety bag. I do go through all of them and write there value at the top and bottom on the paper bands at least!

So for a while I was using a 12 slot thing for tackle. I keep most of my components organized in these little tackle storage containers from wal mart, that or the ones for beeds! Anyways I just took all the resistors that started with a one, i.e 1ohm 1k ohm 18ohm, you get the point and threw them in the first and second slots of the container (theres alot that start with one) the next slot got all the values starting with two, i.e 20ohm 20k ohm, the next slot got the threes, and so on, you get the point. The last slot was filled with random resistors I have bread boarded and pulled out of the paper reels. Well I accidently dumped them out the other day, now that im organizing I was wondering if theres a better method for organizing these things, and maybe for caps too, thats even worse but I just store those by type i.e electrolytic, ceramic, tantalum, the cap system isnt so bad but only becuase i dont have near as many caps as resistors .

Dr_Acula

For twenty years I postponed the decision but I finally bought some parts drawers with one drawer for each value. Ok, it isn't quite - I still do your thing mixing all the 1meg to 10megs in one drawer and ditto for the 1 ohm to 8.2 ohm, but the rest are all in individual drawers. Life is good!

But my capacitors are still a complete muddle...

Roger Lee

I sort mine into several parts drawers by value of first two digits. 10 22 47 , you get the idea.
Still have a couple of misc. drawers, bet but this system works for me.

W9GFO

I put the common ones in a clear storage box, each value is in bags of 200 ea. I have another box that is made up of one of those huge variety packs that I got almost 20 years ago. It is a bit messier.

SRLM

I use these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Z5988U/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

I map 1:1 resistor_value:drawer. Most of my resistors are 1/4 watt, although some are 1/8 watt. I mix them together (the size difference is easy enough to tell). Capacitors get their set of drawers, by capacity. Screws (#2, #4, ...) get their own drawers, as do ICs and other EE related hardware.

Each drawer is carefully labeled with a printer like this: http://www.ptouchdirect.com/ptouch/new_ptd200.html

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

The parts cabinet I keep experimental resistors in has four drawers across and five drawers high. Across, the values are 1, 2.2, 4.7, and 6.8. Down the values are x10, x100, x1000, x10,000, and x100,000. The first three drawers in the top row are exceptions to the pattern and are used for pots, arrays, and power resistors. The very last drawer is 680K+ and is mostly populated with 1M. Intermediate values are stuffed into their nearest drawer behind dividers. These are all 1/4-watters, BTW, since they work in solderless breadboards. My 1/8W collection has gotten loose in a box and is a total, hopeless mess. SMD resistors, OTOH are completely organized into little snap-top bead containers, many of which fit in one parts drawer.

-Phil

rwgast_logicdesign

see ive always wanted to do it thw way dracula is trying in the draweres srlm linked too. i havent found those locally anywhere!! My issue with that is the plastic draweres i use are a bit big there like these 6in by 6in draweres and there freakin 9 bucks for 3 at wall mart! so i use them for sockets wire headers copper clad proto board that kinda stuff. when were talking about 1k 10k 100k i may have like 50 or 100 of em but some resistors i have 3 of its hard to justify even wasing a tackle compartment on 3 resistors lol.

im thinkin i may go the route of putting populars in a well organized box and then sorting the rest a lil less anal in a bag somewhere, maybe keeping a pot or two in with the populars in case im not at home but need to test a weird value!

so if i go this route what are the values used the most i should alwaus have on hand? obviously 1 10 100k but what else?

SRLM

I don't bother with 3 resistors per drawer. Instead, I took the one-time leap of stocking up on a large assortment of resistor values. You can buy 100 of any resistor for $4 or less.

http://www.mouser.com/Passive-Components/Resistors/_/N-5g9n?P=1yzp0sgZ1yzp0fgZ1z0z819&Keyword=resistor&FS=True&&SAP=true

If you spend $200 or so, you'll be able to have enough resistors for a long life of hardware hacking. Add in a bit more, and you can get caps too.

Phil has a good list: powers of ten of 1, 2.2, 4.7, and 6.8. I would add to that a larger variety in the range of 500 ohms to 20K ohms. Even if you only have a few resistors, though, the nice thing is that you can combine them to get virtually any resistance that you need.

RDL2004

I cleaned out my junk box a couple of weeks ago and for some strange reason decided to organize the resistors.

These are the quantities and values I had:

Ohms quantity
47	6
100	5
150	2
220	8
270	1
300	12
330	4
470	7
1 K	5
1.2 K	1
2.2 K	3
2.7 K	1
4.7 K	5
5.1 K	1
5.6 K	1
10 K	12
15 K	2
22 K	1
33 K	1
100 K	4
150 K	1
300 K	7
470 K	5
1 M	7
10 M	2
	
Total	104

Now these aren't all the resistors I have, I keep the new (unused) ones separately in plastic tubs. This is just what was the twisted mass that had accumulated from years of breadboarding. After seeing the quantities and values, it looks like I could have gotten by with just a handful of values (I accidentally ordered 300k instead of 300 ohms once which is why there is so many of that value instead of 470k).

I had an old Plano box that I wasn't using and I bought a bunch of little craft storage tubes on eBay. After a couple of hours with my P-touch PT-1950, here's what I ended up with.



By the way, if anybody is considering buying a labeler such as a P-touch, spend the extra $ to get one that works with your PC like any other USB printer and comes with an AC adapter. The stand alone types aren't nearly as convenient and easy to use.

mindrobots

@Rick

+1 on the craft storage tubes - those look nice!! (assuming I were ever to organize anything)

@rwgast: Trust me when I tell you I am in no position to offer any advice on organizing ANYTHING!

LoopyByteloose

Some people are skilled at organization, others are better at chaos. And yet, life is a process of making messes and then cleaning them up. It is up to you as to how big you want the messes to be.

I get resistors in tiny baggies of 10 or 20 or so. I group them by A. Less than 100 ohms, B. 100 ohms to 999, C. 1K to 999K, and D. 1M and above.

In each group, I put the little bags in numerical order and I bundle the group with a big rubber band. And then, everything goes in one big baggie.

Resistors are not hard - it is the capacitors that are hard to get in order as you have many types as well. And then of course, the SMD devices go in a set of tiny glass jars.

I wouldn't worry to much about it. After 5 or so years you will develop some good habits.

And, we all have bought a mislabeled value and ended up with a pile of 300K or some other value that will never get used up. I got stuck with a bunch of 220meg 1/4watts!

Humanoido

Each resistor value gets a plastic bag. The number value is at the top of the bag. The bags are placed in numerical order, then held together at the top with a large black office clip. Bags take up a very small amount of space for inventory. It's easy to flip through the bags and see which inventory is low and needs to be replenished.

JLocke

I got some of these little zip-lock bags and put each value in its own bag. I got the 2x3 bags with the white strip; the resistor value gets written with a Sharpie onto the white strip. The bags are stored in several drawers, sorted in ascending order.

Beau Schwabe

Many times I'll just pick them out of the "rats nest" of resistors.... What you don't know your color codes?

I do have some segmented drawers ... LEGO has a good deal on multi-drawers that works out to about 50 cents a bin... for just over 30 bucks you get 64 drawers.

What I typically do is group all of the 10 Ohm,100 Ohm, 1k, 10k, 100k, 1Meg, 10Meg close to one another ... likewise 47 Ohm, 470 Ohm, 4.7k, 47k, 470k, 4.7Meg ... see the pattern? Anyway I have found that grouping them like that makes them easier to find rather than just keeping them in consecutive order.

idbruce

This project is not complete, but this is what I intend to do.

I have been saving identical prescription bottles for several years, so it is needless to say that I have a large quantity of them. My intention is to build a multi-tier platform, with each tier representing a specific wattage, and each tier having a series of holes drilled with a hole saw to match the diameter of the prescription bottles, with the number of holes made in each tier to coincide with the different values of commonly available resistors. In addition to various tiers, the caps will be color coated for easy wattage identification, as well as having the caps marked with the resistance value.

Bruce

EDIT: Additionally, the prescription bottles will be ordered linearly according to their resistance value.

Tracy Allen

I've been avid about resistor collections ever since I was an undergraduate student and visited the electronics shop attached to the physics department. It is important when you have to do a lot of analog work that depends on precision resistor ratios.

Wall of drawers for a complete set of 5% 1/4W values from 1Ω to MΩ, some other W ratings mixed in. Also a set of 1% RN55 values from 10Ω to 1MΩ, stored as two values per drawer. Some other values such as 0.1 and 0.2Ω shunts, and assorted 1T and 12T pots.

Set of 0805 5% surface mount resistors in strips of 50 from a kit from good ol' Digikey, also a Digikey set of 0603 1% from 10Ω to 1MΩ. It's kind of hard to keep track of the strips bundled in their individual plastic sleeves, so one of these days I'll label them all and move them over into the drawers with the RN55s. Labeling the strips is especially important with the 0603s, because they are marked with the cryptic EIA-96 code.

Drawers with a set of 1206 5% SMTs mostly in the ammo packs that Mouser used to sell. I like those ammo packs because they are great for storage of lots of parts and clearly marked.

mindrobots

Tracy, you are proving that resistance isn't futile!!

Publison

While I have seven or eight 64 Drawer cabinets, I like to keep my resistor in a compact box that I can bring to the bench.

The boxes are only 9"x4"x4" and I have over 200 values in them right now. I use these for the envelopes:

http://www.staples.com/Staples-3-2-1-2-inch-x-4-1-4-inch-Brown/product_535070

Jim

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

Beau Schwabe wrote:

What you don't know your color codes?

It's one thing to know the color codes. It's another thing entirely to see the color codes.

In my case, the narrower the stripe, the more red and orange start to look alike.

-Phil

RDL2004

Lol, Phil. I have the same problem. Sometimes the darker colors are hard to tell apart also. I think it's because they cheapified the paint by cutting way back on the TiO₂

rwgast_logicdesign

wow i can only aspire to be at tracys status one day! i bet ill never even permantely mount most of the values i have to a pcb..

I gotta say publison envelopes and rdls craft tubes are nice. I may try scouring home depot/wal mart tommorow and see if i can find something like those tubes.. I know wal mart sells a few hundred plastic baggys the size of publisons envelopes for 2 bucks.

i spend alot of time away from home home and like to bring projects with me usuallu i take whatever special parts i know i need chips connectors etc and just grab all my passives if im in the design phase along with a breadboard, strippers, razor and a few feet of cat5 off the real.

Publison

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) wrote: »

It's one thing to know the color codes. It's another thing entirely to see the color codes.

In my case, the narrower the stripe, the more red and orange start to look alike.

-Phil

Yes, us guys that are just a little more than teenagers may need Jeff's "most excellent" project:

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?140603-Talking-Resistor-Calculator&highlight=resistor

Jim

prof_braino

http://www.harborfreight.com/40-bin-organizer-with-full-length-drawer-94375.html
http://www.harborfreight.com/multi-compartment-utility-box-40528.html

http://www.use-enco.com/1/1/66506-317-95-durham-steel-storage-w-plastic-drawers-small-parts-cabinets.html
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Blue-Metal-Storage-Drawer-Cabinet-48-Plastic-Drawers-Small-Parts-Storage-/170906921647?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27cad8aaaf

One value in one drawer . It takes a couple days to sort the mess out the first time, but save a couple days on each project after that, so the effort is well worth it. I inherited a bunch of little parts drawers when folks retired and moved to smaller digs, it was is big step forward for the Braino Lab.

Lawson

I've found the AideTek Box-All works a treat for SMD components as long as you label the wells. ( also ESD safe ) Far faster to use than pawing through a bag of Digikey component bags.

Lawson