With SMD becoming more and more common, I really wanted to get a supply of different resistor values – a bit like this binder with through-hole components:

So I decided to get 100 of each of the E12 series, thus named because it has 12 values per order of magnitude – spread out in a logarithmic scale: 10, 12, 15, 18, 22, 27, 33, 39, 47, 56, 68, 82.

Here are all the values from 1 Ω to 10 MΩ:

Nothing fancy, but pretty low cost. And as a bonus: 0 Ω resistors! Don’t laugh, these can actually be quite handy as bridges over other traces. You could even use a single-sided PCB by adding a couple of these as “wire jumpers”!

Here’s the final result, as stored in the lab. I keep a set of 100 Ω, 1 kΩ, 10 kΩ, and 100 kΩ around for quick-and dirty uses, but this way all the usual values are available when I need ’em:

Each drawer has 3 compartments, with two values of the E12 series in each. So that’s two drawers per order-of-magnitude (“decade”), times 7, plus the extra 0 Ω and 10 MΩ. All that’s left, is to add a couple of labels on the drawers to quickly pick the right one.

Ready to do lots more experiments here at JeeLabs! :)