I have a couple of SMT parts that I ordered "digireels" for - i.e., essentially tapes wound around a spool, with some leader tape attached at the front. This is good for the pick and place machine - but what if I want to take off a couple of parts from the reel myself, for quick prototyping/debug? is there a best practice for manually dealing with such reels - for example - is taking parts off the front better or from the rear? Or anything I should be careful about, so that the pick and place process does not get affected due to my "tampering" with the reel?
Thanks.