Storing Successfully For Years

Does your company need to keep spare parts, repair essentials, small electronic devices, or other electronics that can fail with a touch of static shock? If you hadn't considered the possibly, anything that has electrical circuitry that works with a computer system or other types of electronics that save information on chip storage can be ruined completely by static shock, scraping against other electronics, or being crushed under the weight of other electronics.

Here are a few storage details and options for companies that need a better way to store their tech gear.

Why Does Electronics Storage Matter Specifically?

Where do most people store equipment, spare parts, and whole devices? Some people have a stack of old machines or spare machines in equipment rooms or the corners of work centers, while others may have a series of drawers used for labeled or unlabeled storage, and a lot of lessons can be learned from random storage.

For many parts and devices, you can use storage any way you want as long as you aren't violently tossing things into drawers or on the floor. For exposed circuitry such as expansion cards (video cards, sound card, and modems for computers), computer memory, 3D printing controller boards, or hard drives, you could be damaging more than you see.

An easy, but random and hard to trace problem is static shock. Since many electronics boards use small, precise lanes of gold, copper, or other materials that are highly conductive, static shock may as well be a lightning strike that burns through the precise lanes. Burning can happen easily, and the damage is too small to see in some cases until the parts are used--and then a small burn damages everything even further.

Aside from static shock, there's the issue of scratching electronic trace areas or damaging board-mounted components. Sliding in other parts with sharp corners can scrape way the electrical traces, and enough force may break off capacitors or other soldered-on components.

Using The Right Types Of Storage

To avoid static shock, there's an entire niche industry dedicated to anti-static plastic storage. Stackable storage containers made of anti-static material can be arranged like any other storage, and you can buy anti-static wrist straps to make transferring those parts safer.

For everything else, try to get plastic storage with drawers that are the right size. You don't all want deep trays that will eventually crush the bottom components when the drawer is filled, but some devices may be big enough for bigger storage bins.

If in doubt, contact a stackable plastic storage containers professional to get more info on available storage options.