Hi all,

I am planning to organize the electronic components (ICs, passive and active components) and modules (Arduino shields etc) in storage plastic boxes similar to the one shown below. Is there a risk of damaging the components and modules when stored in plastic boxes? What is the likelihood of damage due to static?

 

Ideally ICs should be in antistatic containers, there's no risk for resistors, caps, diodes, inductors.

 

I use plastic containers all the time. I plug sensitive components into pink anti-static foam.

 

Is there a risk of damaging the components and modules when stored in plastic boxes? What is the likelihood of damage due to static?

Save yourself some grief and store them properly. Even transparent tape can generate ESD, so I use ESD tape to close antistatic bags/tubes.

 

Look for antistatic parts containers.
Then you don't have to be concerned about whether the part is static sensitive or not.

 

I use plastic containers all the time. I plug sensitive components into pink anti-static foam.

Pink "Anti Static" foam is just foam that doesn't generate static. It's not static shielding or conductive.

I use boxes like that all the time for passive components. For IC's transistors, FET family, modules, etc. I use static shielding bags or conductive static foam. While it's not "Shielding" it does expose (in theory) all the pins to the same potential, thus preventing a static pathway through a chip. Aluminum foil is shielding but it also causes corrosion on the pins. Just to be fair, so does conductive foam. But with aluminum you can pierce the shell with the legs of a pin (PTH type). SMT doesn't tend to poke through aluminum foil.

It's also good practice to have an anti-static station along with a good wrist strap; both properly grounded through at least a 1MΩ resistor. 10MΩ would be the max.

 

I prefer to use the black conductive foam like thiS.

​