Customizing Your Work Area
230 Chapter 5
For undivided, flat-format storage boxes, the Prolatch 23600-00 is ideally sized
to fit a file-cabinet drawer, and the latches are sufficiently secure that you
could stack a series of them on their long edges. See Figure 5-4.
Plano also sells some really nicely designed toolboxes, one of which you can
place on your desktop. It will have small drawers for easy access to screwdriv-
ers, pliers, and other basics. Because you need a work area that’s only about
three feet square for most electronics projects, surrendering some desk space
to a toolbox is not a big sacrifice.
If you have a steel desk with relatively shallow drawers, one of them can be al-
located for printed catalogs. Don’t underrate the usefulness of hard copy, just
because you can buy everything online. The Mouser catalog, for instance, has
an index, which is better in some ways than their online search feature, and
the catalog is divided into helpful categories. Many times I’ve found useful
parts that I never knew existed, just by browsing, which is much quicker than
flipping through PDF pages online, even with a broadband connection. Cur-
rently, Mouser is still quite generous about sending out their catalogs, which
contain over 2,000 pages. McMaster-Carr will also send you a catalog, but only
after you‘ve ordered from them, and only once a year.
Now, the big question: how to store all those dinky little parts, such as resistors,
capacitors, and chips? I’ve tried various solutions to this problem. The most ob-
vious is to buy a case of small drawers, each of which is removable, so you can
place it on your desk while you access its contents. But I don’t like this system,
for two reasons. First, for very small components, you need to subdivide the
drawers, and the dividers are never secure. And second, the removability of
the drawers creates the risk of accidentally emptying the contents on the floor.
Maybe you’re too careful to allow this to happen, but I’m not!
My personal preference is to use Darice Mini-Storage boxes, shown in Figure
5-5. You can find these at Michaels in small quantities, or buy them more eco-
nomically in bulk online from suppliers such as http://www.craftamerica.com.
The blue boxes are subdivided into five compartments that are exactly the
right size and shape for resistors. The yellow boxes are subdivided into ten
compartments, which are ideal for semiconductors. The purple boxes aren’t
divided at all, and the red boxes have a mix of divisions.
The dividers are molded into the boxes, so you don’t have the annoyance asso-
ciated with removable dividers that slip out of position, allowing components
to mix together. The box lids fit tightly, so that even if you drop one of the
boxes, it probably won’t open. The lids have metal hinges, and a ridge around
the edge that makes the boxes securely stackable.
I keep my little storage boxes on a set of shelves above the desk, with a gap of
3 inches between one shelf and the next, allowing two boxes to be stacked on
each shelf. If I want to work with a particular subset of boxes, I shift them onto
the desktop and stack them there.Figure 5-4. This Plano brand box is
undivided, making it useful for storing
spools of wire or medium-size tools. When
stacked upright on its long edge, three will
fit precisely in a file-cabinet drawer.
Figure 5-5. Darice Mini-Storage boxes are
ideal for components such as resistors, ca-
pacitors, and semiconductors. The boxes
can be stacked stably or stored on shelves,
with their ends labeled. The brand sticker
is easily removed after being warmed with
a heat gun.