Breadboard gurus question?

[pappasmurfsharem]

Anyone.have any little tricks for keeping your breadboard components organized?

ICs and transistors are easy enough assuming the label is legible.

But resistors are a pita for me to take off the board and reorganize.

I was thinking of getting little thin sticky labels and wrapping them around resistor so that a little tab hangs off that has the value written on it.

[pappasmurfsharem]

Just had a thought jewelry price tags would be about perfect I think.

[Arcane Analog]

After a little experience the colours should make the resistors easily idendified. If you cannot remember them just keep the colour code beside you.

[pappasmurfsharem]

After a little experience the colours should make the resistors easily idendified. If you cannot remember them just keep the colour code beside you.

Valid.

However sometimes even with decent lighting I find it hard to make out the color bands and it becomes an arduous task to resort my components.

[psychedelicfish]

Being colourblind (red-green) I find it very difficult to distinguish between a 1k and a 10k resistor, for instance. I got sick of checking each resistor with my multimeter, so I went out and bought a cheap plastic drawer unit and spent the afternoon sorting out most of my resistors into drawers, i.e one drawer for <500Ω, one for <5k, e.t.c. I find that although I don't really know which colours correspond to which numbers, I can recognise a 4.7k resistor by sight , and by putting them in a different drawer to the 47k resistors I can fairly safely pick out the resistor I need.

[pappasmurfsharem]

Being colourblind (red-green) I find it very difficult to distinguish between a 1k and a 10k resistor, for instance. I got sick of checking each resistor with my multimeter, so I went out and bought a cheap plastic drawer unit and spent the afternoon sorting out most of my resistors into drawers, i.e one drawer for <500Ω, one for <5k, e.t.c. I find that although I don't really know which colours correspond to which numbers, I can recognise a 4.7k resistor by sight , and by putting them in a different drawer to the 47k resistors I can fairly safely pick out the resistor I need.

I just picked up one if these.
Brother PT-70 Personal Handheld Labeler
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000L513ZU/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_8T8Ktb11X6R5M


Should be good

[Arcane Analog]

I have several of these but I usually just grab what I need and can put them back by looking at a few bands. Even if you only know a few colours you will be able to sort them quickly.

[Arcane Analog]

Tayda sends resistors in a labeled package which is handy if you do not use an organizer.

[pappasmurfsharem]

Tayda sends resistors in a labeled package which is handy if you do not use an organizer.

I actually have them organized in a baseball card binder.

It's more for those occasions where I breadboard something and don't come back to it for a week or two then forget what values I put where

My real intention is to use a small plastic storage box to specifically hold my bread board components that way it can stay small and I can keep all the resistors in one pocket .

Then when I'm finished I can just grab all the components off the board and put them in their general receptacle without having to resort everything.

[Thecomedian]

Remembering the number -> color scheme doesnt take much. Its just 10 numbers to a color, and then the decimal band. If you keep the layout on breadboard similar to the layout on paper, it should take a moment to look at the paper and verify what resistor is what. You'll also learn the color code this way while doing something useful.

I bought a bunch of jewelry bags from hobby lobby, and I sorted them all and wrote on some paper tape the numbers and put those tapes on each bag correlating to the components inside. Very cheap, but cabinets or drawers would be superior for time saving reasons.

[PRR]

> even with decent lighting

What are you calling "decent"??

All fluorescents suck. They give you a purple and a green in proportion to look "white" but leave-out most of the spectrum.

Incandescent is tolerable if bright. The spectrum is red-biased but smooth and continuous all the way into blue.

For years I was blessed with a skylight which was a great help.

And remember: tailors don't pick-up dropped pins. The value of a pin is less than the tailor's time to bend over. Resistors today are nearly cheap as pins. Buy in bulk, use 'em, toss 'em.

This assumes you have excellent color vision. There are many shades of color-"blindness", from just being poor at blue-green to total loss of several colors. I've always been able to flip-through the entire chart-book at the eye-doc, but not everybody can. There must be color-blind tests on-line.

[haveyouseenhim]

I can read color codes quite well, I just can't read the blue 1% resistors. The base color isn't a good background color and makes all of the bands look the same.

[nosamiam]

I can read color codes quite well, I just can't read the blue 1% resistors. The base color isn't a good background color and makes all of the bands look the same.

^^^ That's my problem too. And with 5 bands, the spaces in between are tight, making it even harder to distinguish them.

[pappasmurfsharem]

I can read color codes quite well, I just can't read the blue 1% resistors. The base color isn't a good background color and makes all of the bands look the same.

^^^ That's my problem too. And with 5 bands, the spaces in between are tight, making it even harder to distinguish them.

Or when it has brown on both ends

[CodeMonk]

I can read color codes quite well, I just can't read the blue 1% resistors. The base color isn't a good background color and makes all of the bands look the same.

^^^ That's my problem too. And with 5 bands, the spaces in between are tight, making it even harder to distinguish them.

Or when it has brown on both ends

I ran into that recently when diagnosing a pedal. Hate that.
And on some resistors, I've had trouble telling "Is that green or blue?"
Tropical fish caps can sometimes be a PITA as well.

I've used these before :

I would write the value on it, then cover it with clear nail polish (carefully as sometimes the ink will dissolve/run).
Then zip it onto the part.

[nocentelli]

Learning to read the colour code on resistors just happens over time. After a suprisingly short period, you start recognising common values and seeing patterns, e.g. 1k = brown/black/RED, 10k = brown/black/ORANGE, 100k = brown/black/YELLOW. However, this unconcious learning only seems to apply to those four band, cream-bodied 5%. I still have to get out the multimeter for blue resistors.

Another easy way to label individual resistors is to use the strips of paper they are mounted on (bandolier?) cut into small squares: You can write the value onto the square, push one leg of the resistor between the two layers and slide the paper up pthe leg.

I tend to breadboard, and if i'm done with a circuit, i just pull all the parts and dump them into a tupperware box. After a few weeks, i'll spend half an hour sorting them all back into my parts stash.

[Jdansti]

I can do the resistor color code, but like others, I can't always discern certain colors even though I have good color vision and good close up reading vision. I have to use the light from my iPhone (the same one as the camera flash) and a magnifying loupe. PITA! Sometimes it's just as quick to use a meter.

[boogietone]

I bought one of these just last week to help mainly with reading if labels. http://www.officedepot.com/mb/skupage.do?skuid=289604. With the lighting I have, fluorescent, IC markings are all washed out. I still have to turn the part just right to read but it does not take quite as much effort with the magnifying glass/light. Before I was using the light from my iphone as well.

As for resistors, I find the 1% blue ones to be difficult mainly because the bands are small and some of the color combinations are confusing, particularly the ones that start with brown. I find myself measuring them more often than I would like.

[WhiskeyMadeMeDoIt]

Build one of these : http://hackaday.com/2014/02/16/rescan-automated-resistor-identification/

Just looked at the website and he has released a jar file.  So you may only need a webcam  and run the java program. 

[duck_arse]

over all the many years of accumulation, my resistors have such a great range of makes/manufacturers, that I know many of them by sight. there is a couple of 68k's in particular I'm quite fond of. this applies to the carbon film, the old philips green MR25's, and the red beyschlags. the blue metal films? anyone's guess.

however. there is one thing I will say for the tayda metal films. because they've scrimped on the blue base colour laquer, and the band laquers, I find they are easier to read than the full-quid metal films.