Make: Electronics by Charles Platt (classic books to read TXT) 📗

a Formica-clad kitchen countertop placed across them. File cabinets are ideal for storing all kinds of objects, not just files.

Of all the workbenches I’ve used, the one I liked best was an old-fashioned steel office desk—the kind of monster that dates back to the 1950s. They’re difficult to move (because of their weight) and don’t look beautiful, but you can buy them cheaply from used office furniture dealers, they’re generous in size, they withstand abuse, and they last forever. The drawers are deep and usually slide in and out smoothly, like good file-cabinet drawers. Best of all, the desk has so much steel in it that you can use it to ground yourself before touching components that are sensitive to static electricity. If you use an antistatic wrist strap, you can simply attach it to a sheet-metal screw that you drive into one corner of the desk.

What will you put in the deep drawers of your desk or file cabinets? Some paperwork may be useful, perhaps including the following documents:

Product data sheets

Parts catalogs

Sketches and plans that you draw yourself

The remaining capacity of each drawer can be filled with plastic storage boxes. The boxes can contain tools that you don’t use so often (such as a heat gun or a high-capacity soldering iron), and larger-sized components (such as loudspeakers, AC adapters, project boxes, and circuit boards). You should look for storage boxes that measure around 11 inches long, 8 inches wide, and 5 inches deep, with straight sides. Boxes that you can buy at Wal-Mart will be cheaper, but they often have tapering sides (which are not space-efficient).

The boxes that I like best are Akro-Grids, made by Akro-Mils (see Figures 5-2 and 5-3). These are very rugged, straight-sided, with optional transparent snap-on lids. You can download the full Akro-Mills catalog from http://www.akro-mils.com and then search online for retail suppliers. You’ll find that Akro-Mils also sells an incredible variety of parts bins, but I don’t like open bins because their contents are vulnerable to dust and dirt.

Figure 5-2. Akro-Grid boxes contain grooves allowing them to be partitioned into numerous compartments for convenient parts storage.

Figure 5-3. Lids are sold separately for Akro-Grid boxes to keep the contents dust-free. The height of the box in Figure 5-2 allows three to be stacked in a typical file-cabinet drawer. The box shown here allows two to be stacked.

For medium-size components, such as potentiometers, power connectors, control knobs, and toggle switches, I like storage containers measuring about 11 inches long, 8 inches wide, and 2 inches deep , divided into four to six sections. You can buy these from Michaels (the craft store), but I prefer to shop online for the Plano brand, as they seem more durably constructed. The Plano products that are most suitable for medium-size electronic parts are classified as fishing-tackle boxes, and you’ll see them at http://www.planomolding.com/tackle/products.asp.

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.

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.

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 screwdrivers, 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 allocated 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. Currently, 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 obvious 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 economically 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.

Figure 5-5. Darice Mini-Storage boxes are ideal for components such as resistors, capacitors, 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.

The dividers are molded into the boxes, so you don’t have the annoyance associated with removable dividers that slip out of position, allowing components to mix together. The box lids fit tightly, so that even if you