DIY Parts Organizer Folder

In this Instructable I'm going to go through a very quick and easy way to create a folder to store small parts in. The aim of this project was to make something to hold very small electronics parts, such as small SOP IC's which I have many of and no good way to store them. I originally taped the IC's to a piece of paper and wrote their corresponding part number adjacently, but this wasn't very effective for a variety of reasons. I ended up consulting my mom about this problem and she had the great idea to sew lines on plastic paper holders used in 3-ring binders. This ended up solving the problem very well and for very cheap, as I am far too cheap to buy the commercial SMD parts holder. This can be used for much more than electronic parts storage and it can be completely customizable!

• Plastic paper holder for 3-ring binder
• Sewing machine
• 3-ring binder

The former is pretty simple, just draw whatever design you want on the plastic sleeves to make the sewing job easier. I decided to do a few different designs and the former photo worked the best for me in the end for holding my parts. To make this job easier and to ensure straight lines, I taped the end to a straight piece of cardboard and used a ruler with an perpendicular end stop to get it right. For this part you can go as crazy as you want with your designs, any shape you can sew is available, making this a highly customizable project!

Sewing through the plastic sleeve proved to be somewhat difficult, but definitely doable with some experience. There were a lot of loops of sting in the plastic in the end, so I just went through and cut them off to clean it up.

Subsequent to sewing, you'll have to cut the actual slots for the parts to slide into. For this you'll have to cut right next to the sew line, but this will vary for all designs and what your situation is. For my designs with the exception of the two shown in the beginning photo, I had to cut just under each sew line and only through the first plastic layer. I found the best way to do this was to stick a small screwdriver through the sewing line to separate the two plastic layers then get a small scissors and cut the line then.

For the first of the two shown in the first photo on this Instructable, the lines were sewn vertically to fit wires in them which required no cutting. The second I cut lines vertically rather than horizontally like the photo on this step. For this one I simply did the same method described above, just rotated 90 degrees. This was to mimic SMD part storage folders which sell for a decently expensive amount of money. I plan to make many more versions of this folder as I feel it is the most useful for my purposes, and for very cheap with supplies we have too much of!

After slots are cut and the pages are put into the binder, this is now a pretty nice way to hold a variety of parts in a compact way. Being able to design everything makes this highly customizable and using household parts makes this very cheap and easy to make! I hope this becomes a solution to the problems of part organization for many people just as it has for me!