Resistor Storage for Beginners

by DaniFoldi

3.1K179

Intro: Resistor Storage for Beginners

Hi and welcome to my second Instructable.

This project is going to be a simple storage system for your resistors and/or capacitors.

I know that a lot of you have a whole set of containers with little drawers for storing all of your electronics parts, but for those of you, who haven't, it might be useful.

STEP 1: Gathering the Materials

You're obviously going to need quite a few resistors.

The second thing is a box of merci® chocolate. The box is going to be used for collecting all the resistors and making all of them available at a time.

Also, some tape (any kind, I used one to make it look nice with the box) will be used to hold the strips in place. Some kind of labelling could be useful too, so I recommend getting post-its ready to action.

STEP 2: Empty the Box

This one was done already when I got the box, so (unfortunately) I had no work with this. This one is simple, your bear in mind that once you put resistors into the box, don't put it back to the kitchen or gift it to somebody (only if you want to give them resistors).

STEP 3: Label the Resistors

This one only requires a multimeter or a table that shows you the resistor value based on the color bands. For each package you have, measure one and write it on a paper. Using the color bands, you can also get the tolerance, which is sometimes needed.

After that, I just put them in order by value, however, if you have big spaces, you can play around with different placements to get a better fit.

STEP 4: Extra Space

In case you couldn't place all of them in the box, there is a solution, You can use multiple boxes, which if you do, I recommend ordering them by value. In this case, you can also label the boxes, let's say "1kΩ-10kΩ".

If you can almost fit them in one box, then you still have place on the opening cover, which is a great place to store a second layer of resistors. At this one I recommend stacking them vertically, the horizontal version did not work for me as there were no dividers.

STEP 5: Fixing Them Into the Box

Now, at the bottom, one row of tape is more than enough. Putting the post-it under the resistors not only gives access to the ones that it would hide, but it also is being covered by the tape which prevents it from coming up.

On the top, tape both sides of the strip, because the cover wouldn't close up completely without the second one.

STEP 6: Conclusion

Afterall, this project came really useful to me. I now don't have mess in my electronics box. For a cost of about 10 $, which includes chocolate, it really isn't that bad.

As I mentioned before, you can add multiple boxes or write more data about the resistors themselves as an extension. Another thing would be a simple organizer for the ones you have used in a breadboard project and then removed. Those are almost impossible to put back into the box, but with a bit of tape, you can place them in a separate place, labeled one-by-one into the box.

(Sorry for the image quality :( )

Thanks for reading!

9 Comments

SoakedinVancouver 7 years ago

Well, I hit a national wall. The Merci! chocolate box in Canada is way too small and not sturdy enough to be used for this. Could you list the numbers under the bar code on the back of your boxes so that I can hunt for the right one? Thanks!

P.S. Pretty good milk chocolate based goodies, though, I ate them all with gusto!

SoakedinVancouver 7 years ago

Ouch, pricey... Now, I guess I'll have to be nice to other people, and drop some hints... 10 boxes, I need 10 boxes...

SoakedinVancouver 7 years ago

Merci! Great application, using a widely available (in North America) recyclable box, which happens to be an almost perfect size. Speaking from experience (having stored resistors in >20 different apartments...), this is a better way that the outrageously expensive, space-eating, plastic drawer enclosures! At the moment, I am using envelopes, stashed into mid-size Cardex metal boxes, but your idea is way better, as ten Merci! boxes, stacked on top of each other would achieve a very high density while affording a quick retrieval. The problem you identified, namely returning a "used" resistor to the stash, could be solved by a slight modification of the box, adding vertical dividers.

All in all, a Great Idea! Merci Beaucoup! Mucho Gracias! Thank you very much! Domo Arigato!

DaniFoldi 7 years ago

Wow, thanks for the great feedback! This is what motivates me in making more useful things :) Hope you liked my previous project as well :D

SoakedinVancouver 7 years ago

The laser pointer was nice, I added a suggestion re. the dreaded shrink tubing.

Did you know that MERCI is an acronym?

Mildly
Elaborate
Resistor
Cabinet
Integration

Now I know how you got the idea for this project... ;)

DaniFoldi 7 years ago

Nice acronym :)

(I'm busted :( that's sad :D )