How can we sort the SMD components?

Continuing the discussion from Proposal: Purchase SMD resistor and capacitor kits and toss/recycle the current set of boxes:

I somewhat agree with Tim that if we buy a pre-sorted kit, then it will eventually become unsorted and used up.

We need a reasonable method of sorting what we have, and keep it sorted.

Here’s what I propose. I don’t have any experience with this sort of inventory control, so please comment constructively:

Currently we have large shelves.

That middle one, we should pull everything out, and divide it into smaller compartments.

Each of those can be a size class (0603, 0805, etc)
A bunch of bars are in each compartment.

Those are divided into resistors, caps, and magnitude.
Eg. one bar for resistors between 1k and 9.9k, one bar for resistors between 100ohm and 990ohm, one bar for caps between 1uf and 9.9uf, etc.

Reels are on the bars get moved in the horizontal to roughly position with their values. 1 on the left, 9 on the far right.

All of the non-reel resistors and capacitors can be kept in the box, and prooobably thrown out, depending on quantities. We don’t have to think about that right now.

Thoughts?
This method is cheap in material cost, cheap in setup time, and reasonable in initial sorting effort, I think.

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Users MUST untape the Reel to access the parts and MUST tape the Reel again after. The lose strip will be huge mess otherwise.

That is why I suggest a filing cabinet with folder pockets for Reels. The folder pocket like a zip lock bag to make sure that the lose Reel ends don’t go wild.

I don’t know which approach rod or pocket is best. I tried the rod approach and found I didn’t keep my Reel ends taped :frowning:

I suggest the draw of the filing cabinet and each pocket is bar coded.
So that the inventor part number can be retrieved and updated EASY to update inventory.
We could put bar codes on the side of the Reel as well.

My thoughts:

The filing cabinet idea is good.

I will say that I’m not sure if VHS consumes a large enough quantities of parts to really justify keeping reels of thousands of pieces per reel on hand. These will likely never get used. I saw multiple reels of specific resistor values in the SMD boxes.

With bars there is also the issue of open reels collecting dust over time. Reels kept bagged, in boxes or filing cabinets stops this.

I still really like the kits idea. Kits could either be in boxes or binders, with an index to all the parts.

Kits are easily moveable (i.e. to a table where you might be working). Great for accessibility wheelchairs.

It does require some effort to build/maintain the kits but in the end I see this effort as comparable to building maintaining any other system. I don’t mind assembling kits from reels myself.

Mark

Converting what we have into kits in binders may not be a bad compromise of
space vs inventory…

A handy stack of label stickers next to the reels might help remind people/make it easier to not be lazy about it.

[quote=“tdwebste, post:2, topic:3064”]
I suggest the draw of the filing cabinet and each pocket is bar coded. So that the inventor part number can be retrieved and updated EASY to update inventory. We could put bar codes on the side of the Reel as well.
[/quote]Adding barcodes should definitely be possible, but we should have a system that doesn’t rely on them. Something that actually takes effort to maintain (ie. printing barcodes) won’t last in a Hackspace environment.

If they’re not preferred values, we should get rid of the spares.

Adding filing cabinets adds more floorspace, unless they can be fit in the current shelves.
Also consider that person-power is limited, and this is a one-shot deal. No one will take on the role of forever-sorter in the future.
Putting stuff into sorted bags seems like more work than tossing stuff on reels.

[quote=“Majicj, post:3, topic:3064”]
I still really like the kits idea. Kits could either be in boxes or binders, with an index to all the parts.
[/quote]I agree, and we would have to buy them, because effort. I will still support you in that other thread :wink:

I don’t want to be a Negative Nancy here, so I will formalize this:
I will donate one (1) evening of my time to this effort.

If nothing is done in 2-3 weeks, I will spend that evening building my proposed rod system. I believe I can build the system in a couple hours or less, and then make some good headway on sorting the reels. If there are two other people helping me, we should be able to finish sorting all of our passive component reels.
If someone else has strong opinions about the filing cabinet system, make it so, and tell me when and where my effort should be devoted.

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I got tired of using tape reels or pieces of tape, and removed all of my components and put them in small labelled bags like this:
http://www.davehylands.com/Wood-Working/Electronics-Workbench/Small/19-Small-Storage.html

I use a set of drawers and labelled them using E24 labelling.

I setup a jig with a funnel, and put the bag at the bottom. This made it really easy to remove the components from the tape and put them in the bag.

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I sorted most of the smd resistors into fedex envelopes that are all
labelled with the value it contains ( “R” on the top left and the value
on the top right ). I also started sorting the resistor envelopes by
increasing value into one of the black boxes. There is a cardboard box
with envelopes that needs to be finished sorting.

Here is the list of smd resistor values I’ve found:

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Neat. I’ll check it out next time I’m in the space.

That’s a sweet looking shop you have there! Love the organization!

Bump.

It sounds like we’re on-board for FedEx envelopes?

Where is this box, @hectorh? I had a quick look through last week, and didn’t see anything other than the usual 0805/0603 boxes. A very quick look, so I’m sure it’s there, I just missed it. Can we label it and put it front and centre?

Is there something I can do to help? Give me a task.

One more thing:
@tdwebste has written a cheque for $200, on the condition that it be used in sorting / SMD componentry of some description. Mark, do you want to choose out a kit for us to get? Unless there are better uses of this cash?

(Thanks, Tim! That was really generous of you)

You can also put the $200 towards a digital oscilloscope. If it is not need
for SMD sorting, which of course includes the hardware for bar coding
and/or filing.

@Jarrett if you can come down to VHS today (Thursday the 8th) I’m going to head there now (5:30pm) and can stay until 7:30pm. I’ll pull the boxes so they are visible and do some more sorting.

There are 3 boxes of smd resistors. To the left of the smd semiconductors. Black on the bottom contains values from 5k->up, blue box above it contains values 0->4.99999k. Cardboard box next to it, labelled “0402 RES” has reels waiting to be sorted, placed into the right fedex envelope and added to the spreadsheet. There are extra Fedex envelopes in the large black box.

The blue box is almost a perfect fit for storing the fedex envelopes. Perhaps it would be a good use of the money to buy more boxes of the same dimensions?

I ordered the following 3 kits from Ali-Express after the last AGM/QGM. These should be arriving sometime in the next 2-4 weeks.

I realize there are cheaper options but I liked the size and organization of these and they can be refilled as well.

This is my donation to VHS.

Mark

0603 SMD YAGEO Resistor Sample Book 1% Tolerance 170valuesx50pcs=8500pcs Resistor Kit 0R~10M

0603 SMD muRata Capacitor Sample Book 90valuesX50pcs=4500pcs 0.5PF~2.2UF Capacitor Assortment Kit Pack

0603 7 colorx100pcs=700pcs Brand New 0603 LED SMD Ultra Bright Red/Green/Blue/White/Yellow/Orange/Jade Green LED Diode

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Great, thanks guys. I’ll take another look this evening.

Tim, did you take a look at the scope we have set up near the soldering stations? It’s a decent monochrome digital storage scope, 100MHz bandwidth, I don’t remember if it was 2 or 4 channels

I will drop by saturday and take a look at the digital storage scope

I picked up a couple of small 2 drawer filing cabinets thinking that they might work for this project. They should be small enough to fit into the shelves that are there. Unless I missed a memo saying that its a waste of time cause the plan no longer involves filing cabinets, I’ll bring them down tomorrow

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I dropped them off Saturday night and reorganized the SMD shelf so they would fit. I didn’t put anything in yet but I was thinking with using the fed ex bags maybe a couple rods and some hooks we could have a nice hanging system?

Hmm just a thought. Know those metal rivets they use for the tarps, etc? Like our VHS sign hanging over top of the SMD shelf. We use those in the bags of SMD’s then hang them from hooks on rods in the cabinets? Then we put tags on the rods same way as they have tags on cloths racks to separate sizes, only we do it for SMD types.

I just don’t know the cost yet, tools needed and the time required. Or if someone has a better idea?

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I’ll take a look tonight and check out the filing cabinets. Thanks!