It’s such a nice project. But boy do I think it would benefit from mass production. People spend a lot of time printing generic bins and baseplates that would be better spent just printing custom bins.
Time has never really been an issue imo. For the average person your printer sits unused 99% of the time if it takes you half a day to print a baseplate and some bins, who cares. It’s still faster and cheaper than shipping.
Commercializing doesn't really make sense. So I need to get a small 1x1x3 container to store washers or whatever. With my 3D printer, I'll have that container in under an hour. Even if I bought it with the fastest shipping Amazon has available, assuming it was from a local Warehouse, the earliest I could get it would be half a day away. Having a local store that sells them would be marginally faster, but then I have to go to the store, pick it up and come home. The hour I spend waiting for the printer isn't an hour. I'm I'm completely blocked from doing anything else. It's just an hour in which my printers busy.
The example you bring up is for a single one-off extension. Yeah, for that case it doesn't make a lot of sense.
However, for initial setup of the system (e.g. filling up multiple drawers with baseplates and basic bins, as you will see in many videos online), it would definitely jump start the process a lot, where you'll otherwise spend weeks printing everything. Additionally, if you also go for the fancier baseplates/bins that include the magnets you'll also spend quite a bit of time on assembly and will require external hardware anyways.
I personally didn't think it was a big deal as for me adopting the system incrementally over time worked quite well, but I think there definitely is a niche of people (and possibly businesses) that would like to adopt Gridfinity for its other benefits and appreciate faster initial setup time.
I don't understand the sibling posts that're arguing with you.
Consumer-grade containers would be cheaper than 3d printing if buying a set, it'd get folk up-and-running without fuss, and when they wanted to customize it they could do so with the help of any of their 3d printing fanatic buddies.
So yeah. I agree with @stephenpetryk. Storage solution companies should start marking their bins as Gridfinity-compatible (which is a protected use of copyright regardless of whether "Gridfinity" is copyrighted).
> People spend a lot of time printing generic bins and baseplates that would be better spent just printing custom bins
3D printing with a modern printer is set and forget. You send the print file to the printer and you go get it a couple hours later.
Still faster than waiting for a package from Amazon and lower resource usage than driving to the store.
The customization comes everywhere from picking the bin you want to selecting the color filament to match your layout. Gridfinity isn’t my thing but people who are into it are usually customizing something, from the color to the baseplate.
Especially for baseplates, since I have some drawers that are larger than my print area. It'd be awesome to just buy an injection molded 8x7 on Amazon or whatever for $5 instead of fiddling with glue and interlocking puzzle pieces.
The Slant3d guys have a trope about 3d printing primarily being a fulfilment technology, not a manufacturing one. To me it doesn't matter if someone is selling an injection moulded baseplate if I can print one for pennies from filament I already have and it's in my hands in a couple of hours with no delivery charges.
I must have a very indifferent attitude towards catnip then.
I've also sought treatment for OCD. It doesn't give me any kind of "organizing superpower", it just makes we want to wash my hands after touching things.
That is a great improvement, but best would be a combination of both designs, the former adding the "finder shelf that can also serve for labeling, and the slopped bottom that allows scooping out individual pieces.
Another improvement may be to make the top and bottom pieces stackable along with the snapping grid system compatibility.
Not gridfinity compatible, but I have a set of corner pieces that uses a similar concept. The majority of the material can be scrap acrylic, mdf, cardboard, etc. and you just print the corner pieces. Lids and stuff too.
I’ve been trying this out. The biggest problem I’m experiencing is that your draws won’t be a perfect multiple of the grid size. Which means you are always going to be left with gaps on the side which are wasted space which could be up to 40mm.
There is kind of a solution to this where you can use non standard grid sizes to perfectly fit your draws, and there are generators which will create the baseplates and bins for you. But you lose the ability to use other people’s models.
Feel like it would have been better if they had picked a smaller grid size so the average wasted space would be smaller.
There is also the option to do half bins / half grid pattern at the edge. So you have the normal 42x42 grid pattern, then on one edge there are 21x42 sized boxes. There are a number of designs that support the half grid pattern. This would reduce your maximum lost space down to 20mm, and you would still have compatibility with the gridfinity system.
I’ll have to give this a shot. I can always put the generic bins I can generate as half size on the edge and put the downloaded ones in the standard grid.
I am actually beginning work on a fork which uses 21mm (half normal size) as the basis grid) --- a lot of my work (and attendant hardware) is smaller scale, so hoping that will work out well.
There is a fusion 360 plugin where you can customize all this. You won't be able to download everything out there for the default grid size, but you can make your own.
Took me a while before i understood it was to store physical items. For a second I was thinking some battery solution-like grid storage system. A few photos on the homepage would help a lot and make it much more clear for noobs like me.
When I visit that page, the thumbnail of the embedded youtube video displays automatically and shows a gridfinity setup with a wide variety of tools in it. Presumably he's presuming that people can see that.
Same, hah. The similarity between gridwall and powerwall in another comment also snagged me. "Perfboard" has also gotten me before- both are perforated board, but one is used for quick circuit boards and the other (more commonly called pegboard) is a wall-mounted modular hook system for storage.
Also the proprietary license on multiboard is absolutely insane. Not only is it closed source, even the printed objects have strings attached. If you ever use anything you print from the multiboard library in a for-profit setting you are obligated to pay a monthly license fee.
One might choose multiboard if they want better weight bearing characteristics. I went through this whole evaluation a few months ago and that’s how I ended up with Multiboard over the alternatives.
I think the license is a negative but I also don’t think it’s going to impact end users in any way that would make me worry about using it.
It’s not like I’m dedicating myself to a software ecosystem or something complex like that. If the license somehow becomes a problem, at the end of the day it’s just a pegboard that I printed for under $20 worth of material. I can just make a new one.
For anyone looking to get into those storage systems I can also highly recommend "Hands on Katie"'s Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@handsonkatie - There are a few videos that go into different storage systems and how to combine them to cover different storage needs and vertical/horizontal surfaces.
Her Discord is also quite active with people interested in the space, and Underware (under the desk cable management system), Neogrid and Deskware are all storage systems that have came out of her community.
For walls there is also the GOEWS (Greatly Over Engineered Wall System) - https://goews.xyz
However personally, I've also been a fan of IKEA Skadis boards, as it's quite easy to get up and running in terms of a baseplate + there are already a lot of models for it out there.
Can recommend Honeycomb Storage Wall. Printed it two weeks ago, so far I am super happy with it. I've tried multiboard previously, but only a few segments. It was harder to print, I had it for a year and never really got into accessories, it felt too limiting.
Thanks for posting these, the play conveyor ones are so clean and well designed , i've been watching them on youtube from time to time, havent decided to go with gridfinity or play conveyor yet tho
An old colleague of mine went through the process of doing gridfinity. One of his main struggles was getting boxes that fit his power tools perfectly. He was looking for a way to easily get a shape of the tool into CAD. What’s the most straightforward and effective way to get a CAD representation of a solid these days? Of course there are expensive solutions but is there anything reasonably achievable in the DIY space?
Photogrammetry is one. Generally results in messy geometry though and tolerances get finicky.
The CAD plugin in Blender is my favorite though. Need a caliper to get measurements and then I can build out my hooks/clamps/whatever. FreeCAD for when I just need sketches as I find the solid part workflow utterly confusing, whereas I'm very well versed in Blender.
> Photogrammetry is one. Generally results in messy geometry though and tolerances get finicky.
The trick is a hybrid approach, use photogrammetry to get a draft model into whatever environment you use (like Blender or whatever), then use that for creating the high-quality cutout manually, which will be very easy with a in-place 3D draft model right in the scene.
The common approach is to take a photo of an object from above together with a ruler or something of a known size for scale, then import that directly into the CAD software, scale according to the scaling object, and create a cutout along the object's outline. No need for calipers, 3d scans, or other complex measurement procedures. There are a lot of videos and guides on how to do that.
I'm sure your colleague has done this already, but for anyone considering creating their own models, I would highly recommend checking whether somebody else already went through that process for you. A lot of things have been fitted into gridfinity. And even if not for gridfinity specifically, you can fairly easily adapt other existing models to a gridfinity based box.
There are 3d model search engines where I recommend just entering [item name] + gridfinity to find pre existing models. There is: yeggi.com and thangs.com (be aware that the latter recently changed to only display models from its own domain by default).
Well if you want to get dirty and not deal with design, build a vacuum former. Shop vac, perf board, 2x4 or 1x2 frame and whatever rigid for a backer. Build the frames out of screen door frame pieces, and binder clips to close them. Polystyrene sheets are cheap af $.05 or less at any plastic supplier. Never been to a plastic supplier? I guarantee theres one relatively near by in whatever is your closest major city.
Use your oven to heat the plastic. Turn on the vac, pull out the plastic when it droops, slam down quick… perfect part. Lots of videos on youtube. Adam savage does a few on the process. Lots of nuance to the process to get really good pieces but for cheap, quick and good its hard to beat. Oh yeah the whole stormtrooper cosplay scene has done a lot of work on the setup, most definitely lots of improvements that I’m glossing over but like all rabbit holes its pretty deep.
Imho thats overoptimizing. To me the next larger square box is the best most flexible solution. I get the allure of perfect fit places for everything but to me its not worth the continuous effort. (I got several gridfinity drawers)
You could get a table mat with a measuring grid and take photographs of the object from different sides; three or more depending on how much asymmetric features the object has. Go as far away from the object as possible and use maximum zoom to get as close to isometric perspective as possible. If it’s not a very thick object, this method is millimeter accurate. With larger objects, the perspective will lead to slightly larger measurements at the object extremities: edges closest to the camera will be enlarged.
Then, in your CAD program, set up the photos as backgrounds for different perspective views.
Or, obviously, get a 3D scanner and live with the point cloud mesh approximations, it’s probably less of a hassle.
Or… just get a good set of calipers and a radius measuring tool.
Zach Freedman, the creator of the original Gridfinity, is also an amazing writer and wordsmith. His videos are full of amazing tongue twisters, alliterations and incredible puns.
Outside of gridfinity it can be used to generate odd-sized grids via the GRIPS option, make HSW honeycomb walls, and supports multiboard, and a few others.
Maybe I'm a bit of a downer there, but I looked at the overall effort and time investment of making Gridfinity and rather got myself a cutting board and glue to recycle old cardboard.
Don't get me wrong, Gridfinity looks amazing. But, cutting a few cardboard base plates from old shipping boxes into place and putting together little stands for a metronome, tuner and a few other small things, as well as a bunch of boxes for plecs and other small stuff took like half an hour to an hour.
And I could reuse some trash shipping boxes I had around here.
Resisted this for a long while, instead using a series of plastic organizers in various sizes, eventually settling on the Storehouse 10 Tray Organizer Utility Box from Harbor Freight which organizer size matches that used for selling a fair range of hardware on Amazon --- then, when I dropped one, breaking the dividers/separators in the box and went to look for a replacement discovered it was out of stock locally and was being discontinued.
On that basis, a DIY/roll-your-own solution became far more attractive.
- no waiting on shipping
- no worry about whether or no there is an SKU which meets my needs (I had to modify the 10-tray compartments into 5-tray front--back organizers for endmills)
The thing which finally pushed me over was the development of a matching Systainer system:
I've always viewed these projects with a bit of suspicion - like I have trouble believing that anyone who does this actually does more with their tools than organize them and put them away. Which is fine if that's what you like, but not why I personally own tools. Shop time is limited enough as it is.
Also seems like a great way to add +50% plastic volume to everything you own. Incidentally, I've found the cardboard boxes that 3D printer filament comes in to be an excellent basis for general storage.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 62.6 ms ] threadhttps://gridfinity.perplexinglabs.com/
Ironically printing custom pelican inserts with this right now
Let people make some money while everyone is saving money.
> Let people make some money
Why would people who did nothing to invent and develop the system would get the money and not the creators ?
However, for initial setup of the system (e.g. filling up multiple drawers with baseplates and basic bins, as you will see in many videos online), it would definitely jump start the process a lot, where you'll otherwise spend weeks printing everything. Additionally, if you also go for the fancier baseplates/bins that include the magnets you'll also spend quite a bit of time on assembly and will require external hardware anyways.
I personally didn't think it was a big deal as for me adopting the system incrementally over time worked quite well, but I think there definitely is a niche of people (and possibly businesses) that would like to adopt Gridfinity for its other benefits and appreciate faster initial setup time.
You wouldn't download "Hello world"?
Consumer-grade containers would be cheaper than 3d printing if buying a set, it'd get folk up-and-running without fuss, and when they wanted to customize it they could do so with the help of any of their 3d printing fanatic buddies.
So yeah. I agree with @stephenpetryk. Storage solution companies should start marking their bins as Gridfinity-compatible (which is a protected use of copyright regardless of whether "Gridfinity" is copyrighted).
3D printing with a modern printer is set and forget. You send the print file to the printer and you go get it a couple hours later.
Still faster than waiting for a package from Amazon and lower resource usage than driving to the store.
The customization comes everywhere from picking the bin you want to selecting the color filament to match your layout. Gridfinity isn’t my thing but people who are into it are usually customizing something, from the color to the baseplate.
Though the plus side to this is that it can be done somewhat inrementally
I've also sought treatment for OCD. It doesn't give me any kind of "organizing superpower", it just makes we want to wash my hands after touching things.
Another improvement may be to make the top and bottom pieces stackable along with the snapping grid system compatibility.
https://www.printables.com/model/57813-boxkit-parts-for-maki...
3d printing is great, but a lot of wasted plastic if you print large organizers and stuff like that.
There is kind of a solution to this where you can use non standard grid sizes to perfectly fit your draws, and there are generators which will create the baseplates and bins for you. But you lose the ability to use other people’s models.
Feel like it would have been better if they had picked a smaller grid size so the average wasted space would be smaller.
Great in its own right though
https://www.reddit.com/r/honeycombwall/
Although they aren't open-source as Gridfinity or HSW:
Cargo modular storage system by Play Conveyor: https://thangs.com/designer/Play%20Conveyor/3d-model/Cargo%2...
Multiboard, by Multiboard: https://www.multiboard.io/
HSW 100%
I think the license is a negative but I also don’t think it’s going to impact end users in any way that would make me worry about using it.
It’s not like I’m dedicating myself to a software ecosystem or something complex like that. If the license somehow becomes a problem, at the end of the day it’s just a pegboard that I printed for under $20 worth of material. I can just make a new one.
Her Discord is also quite active with people interested in the space, and Underware (under the desk cable management system), Neogrid and Deskware are all storage systems that have came out of her community.
However personally, I've also been a fan of IKEA Skadis boards, as it's quite easy to get up and running in terms of a baseplate + there are already a lot of models for it out there.
1. Draw the outline of the tool in question on A4 paper
2. Scan it
3. Trace it on Blender, extrude, boolean
4. Print
Of course, only works for small enough tools. Maybe use more A4 sheets?
The CAD plugin in Blender is my favorite though. Need a caliper to get measurements and then I can build out my hooks/clamps/whatever. FreeCAD for when I just need sketches as I find the solid part workflow utterly confusing, whereas I'm very well versed in Blender.
The trick is a hybrid approach, use photogrammetry to get a draft model into whatever environment you use (like Blender or whatever), then use that for creating the high-quality cutout manually, which will be very easy with a in-place 3D draft model right in the scene.
Blender can import an SVG; then you can clean up the curve if necessary.
There are 3d model search engines where I recommend just entering [item name] + gridfinity to find pre existing models. There is: yeggi.com and thangs.com (be aware that the latter recently changed to only display models from its own domain by default).
Adam Savage’s guide to vacuum forming https://youtube.com/watch?v=lTy8tsZzT_Q&pp=ygUaYWRhbSBzYXZhZ...
First page I could find for the diy stormtrooper costume process https://www.studiocreations.com/howto/stormtrooper/index.htm...
Between Honeycomb Storage Wall and Gridfinity almost every tool I own has a home.
Then, in your CAD program, set up the photos as backgrounds for different perspective views.
Or, obviously, get a 3D scanner and live with the point cloud mesh approximations, it’s probably less of a hassle.
Or… just get a good set of calipers and a radius measuring tool.
https://www.tooltrace.ai/
(and for the Europeans/Rest of the World, there's an A4 configuration option)
https://youtu.be/TvIvoY013xQ
I wish he’d write books.
Highly recommended: https://m.youtube.com/@ZackFreedman
You mean, always amazingly augmented, aspiring to alienate all other audible aspirations? Zach is always a treat.
Kudos to all gridfinity makers out there.
https://gridfinity.perplexinglabs.com/
Outside of gridfinity it can be used to generate odd-sized grids via the GRIPS option, make HSW honeycomb walls, and supports multiboard, and a few others.
Don't get me wrong, Gridfinity looks amazing. But, cutting a few cardboard base plates from old shipping boxes into place and putting together little stands for a metronome, tuner and a few other small things, as well as a bunch of boxes for plecs and other small stuff took like half an hour to an hour.
And I could reuse some trash shipping boxes I had around here.
I guess they assume anyone hitting the site already knows this.
When I read 'grid' and 'storage' on HN, I think of other stuff.
On that basis, a DIY/roll-your-own solution became far more attractive.
- no waiting on shipping
- no worry about whether or no there is an SKU which meets my needs (I had to modify the 10-tray compartments into 5-tray front--back organizers for endmills)
The thing which finally pushed me over was the development of a matching Systainer system:
https://old.reddit.com/r/gridfinity/comments/1lnkt93/wip_upd...
which hopefully will be ready by the time my order of a new/larger 3D printer than my current (tiny) Ordbot Quantum arrives.
Also seems like a great way to add +50% plastic volume to everything you own. Incidentally, I've found the cardboard boxes that 3D printer filament comes in to be an excellent basis for general storage.
I've been able to print baseplates that fit precisely inside different drawers, add magnets, etc.
https://github.com/kennetek/gridfinity-rebuilt-openscad
https://youtu.be/fUyQEPzpkLk?si=cADJNQbbquJCUBKD