If you have 25 or 50 surface-mount resistors on cut tape, you can stuff them in an envelope and pop the envelope into your resistor-envelope bin. If you have 5000 surface-mount capacitors, you probably keep them on the manufacturer’s original reel that they were shipped on.
But what if you have 500 0.1uF 0805 capacitors? Or 300 4.7Kohm I2C pullup resistors? How about 750 green 1206 LEDs?
In between a few inches of cut tape and an entire 5000-part reel, there is a no-man’s land that just clutters the bench.
I designed and 3D printed these cut tape holders for those in-between parts that are in every single design, so I always need them on the bench. They’re kind of like a reel that’s been turned inside out – instead of winding the tape onto a hub in the middle, the tape is held captive in a circular cavity.
I embedded 6mm magnets so that they clip together effortlessly.
The original design is free on my TinkerCAD page — link below. Feel free to remix it if you want a slightly bigger compartment or wider tapes.