Altoids IC Holder

This is just a simple ic holder made out of a altoids tin.
The supplies I used were
Altoid tin
Some sort of styrofoam
cardboard (to raise up styrifoam)
Glue

Comments

[vimes79]

A sweet but simple idea that's really quite good!

A portable case that holds a selection of popular IC's is a great idea. I agree with Granzeier, make sure you use Anti-Static foam as alot of IC's can be damaged by static electricity (despite us all dropping them on the carpet, picking them up with our bare fingers and making a mistake that puts a stupid amount of current or voltage or both through the chip and THEY STILL WORK!)

Manufactures pay a huge price by shipping all our kit in Anti static everything (Tubes, Tube End caps, Foam, Mini Anti-Static bags within Antistatic Bags, Antistatic Tape to seal the bags and then all the pretty yellow labels that tell us not to touch without being earthed or the world will end) there must be a reason they do all that so im guessing its prob better to be safe and spend an extra few pennies on the anti-static foam from Maplins/Radio Shack/eBay etc rather then try it with standard packing foam and kill 20 of your prized IC's.

I have a really nice little clear plastic anti-static box about 1.5" by 2.5" with a really tough hinged lid and filled with Anti static foam in the bottom and a thinner layer in the top. It came from Maxim when I ordered 5 samples of some 556's or something a while ago and they arrived from Taiwan in the normal DHL A4 Bag, with another bubble wrap bag inside that then an antistatic bag and then the cool little box which I was more happy with then the IC's inside it.
I use that for keeping 1 of all the most common IC's I use. It holds 4-6x 8Pin DIP and 4x 14-20Pin DIP and if you keep them as close together as you can without contact I can get a 28 or 32pin DIP like an ATMega across the top too.

Its kind of like a plastic mini version of this but only a single layer as the top layer is too thin and the box to shallow to go two deep like this one does.

I like this though, it gives you a huge amount of space by using two storage layers so you can keep all the IC's you need and a spare for most of them in your kit box in a nice strong case that wont break when throwing in with your meter and tools and odd components when you go off to help a mate with a problem on a build.

[Granzeier]

Excellent idea; simple but very useful. I saw this after I posted my Pocket Dev Kit (https://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-PDK-Pocket-Development-Kit/) and your IC Holder was listed as a related 'ible.  This will compliment my kit perfectly, and I will be making one soon.

One thing that you would want to consider (and it looks like you did, but did not mention it) is to use anti-static foam, rather than Styrofoam - this will protect static sensitive chips.

Also, in my instructable, I suggested that you glue the anti-static foam to the lid of the Altoids can, that may be a good idea here too.