Chip Accumulator

[BuffaloEngineer]

What do you do with your old chips? Like that switch debouncer that you sampled for a school project and never used? Or that box of ICs in unlabeled bags that you inherited from someone else?

Garbage? Electronics recycling? Wait for the promised day when they will be useful again? Organize them? Hook them up to the mains to justify throwing them out?

 

[Sceadwian]

I have non-sorted bins all over the place, a sorted tackle box and that's about it. IC's don't take up much space, easy enough to just leave em in a box collecting dust till you get around to it, or not =) Any IC I sort into the tackle box gets a label and the PDF stored on my USB thumb drive.

 

[BuffaloEngineer]

just leave em in a box collecting dust till you get around to it, or not =)

So much dust... mostly I have chosen "or not"

 

[Sceadwian]

My 'unsorted' boxes are about 10 times the volume of the sorted one =O

 

[Krumlink]

It is no fun sorting R12 Resistors x.x

 

[tcmtech]

What is sorting? What purpose is it for? Does it pay? Who pays for it?
I am very confused.

 

[Sceadwian]

I only sort IC's not discrete parts. I might if I had the space for that many bins.
tcmtech, I like it when I want something all I have to do is reach for it =) Not that I don't like your approach but I tend to be a little more meticulous, otherwise I get side tracked hunting down the right bit I want right then and there.

 

[tcmtech]

If I want a part I just reach for it! There is always one near by! Usually several if I look.

The closest I get to sorting is when I do the cleaning out of recyclable materials. Copper, aluminum, iron, plastic, and garbage.
That has resale or burnable heat value.
But it still messes me up on finding things for some time after that.
nothing is where its supposed to be but rather where I thought it should be.

Fortunately scrap prices are very low so I may get by without doing a clean up this year!

 

[Triode]

I just have a small apartment, so I only keep stocks of the most common parts. Its more expensive when you order just what you need and only keep ICs that are good for lots of stuff like timers, flip flops, inverters, isolators and comparators. But what can you do when you only get one cabinet?

 

[Hero999]

I sort my resistors because it's a pain looking through over 1000 different resistors of over 100 values to find the one I want.

I sort most of my ICs into regulators, logic, microcontrollers, op-amps and miscellaneous. I also have a box of unsorted ICs.