SMD Component Container

I have a lot of SMD components.  So many, that sometimes I have a hard time finding what I’m after.  I have looked around for the perfect container for them.  I have tried the small drawer organizers but I really don’t like those.  My wife showed me these small pill containers.  I tried a couple of different styles and I have found that I like them.  One thing I should warn you about them is static sensitive devices aren’t good to keep in the pill containers.  They have no provisions to prevent static.  I don’t keep static sensitive devices in them.

Like I said I have tried a couple of different styles of pill containers.  I have even tried some containers for fishing lures etc.  There are things I like and dislike about the containers.  This first style I like because it is small and holds a good number of components.  One thing I don’t like about it is that it is very easy to open the compartments.  You may say that is good.  Not really it is a mixed bag.  I was putting it in a cardboard box to store it and inadvertently opened one of the compartments.  I didn’t know that I had done that and the next time I went to get it there were 10uf SMD capacitors all over the box.  It was a pretty good mess.  I attempted to pick them all up reminding myself why are you doing this?  These are so cheap don’t bother with them.  But, I couldn’t resist and proceeded to use some tweezers to pick them all up.  I believe I got them all.  There were like 50 scattered through out the box.

Yes, I have part numbers on stickers attached to most compartments.  You can see Digikey part numbers on the stickers.  I can look at a compartment and if it is almost empty with a few clicks I can have more components on the way.  Makes inventory very easy.

The next type is bigger which is a draw back but, it handles more components.  It is interesting to note that all of these containers typically have either 7 or 14 compartments.  Ah, the same number of days in a week.  These really are containers designed to hold pills you take once or twice a day.  This second type I like because it has a fail safe to prevent the compartments from being accidentally opened.  This prevents you from opening the compartments accidentally but, makes the compartments more difficult to get to when you want.  It takes two hands to open them.  If you are in a hurry and trying to put a board together.  You have to stop and open a compartment to get the components you are after.  The other one is a simple push of a button and it is opened.  So, you can take the risk of easy access with the potential for accidentally opening them or something more difficult and reduce or eliminate the accidental opening of compartments.

The hard to open pill container has a button on the lower left that must be pushed to open a compartment.  Even with that button pushed you must use the other hand to open the compartment and it is still difficult to open it.  I have never accidentally opened a compartment on this container.

I have also tried fishing lure plastic boxes.  These are much bigger but they don’t seal very well.  I have found that components have the capacity of coming out even if they are closed.  I keep blank PCB’s in these type of containers.

I found this container in the fishing department at Wally World.  You can see by the label that it is a utility box.

Well, just a few of my thoughts on easy access SMD containers.  Keeping SMD components on the reels or in bags isn’t appealing to me.  I like to be able to get to them quickly as I build many boards and try and build a board in 10ish minutes.

Hope you found this useful.