For this project, I tried to make a customizable 3D-printed storage shelf that could hold all of my electronic components. However, after some test prints, I realized that the disadvantage of a long print time far outweighed the shelf's benefits.
Over the next few years, I will be collecting a lot of electrical components and other items to use in projects, and I need a place to organize them. Because these items will vary in size and quantity, I would like a way to customize my storage with multiple sizes of drawers for different components. To do this, I tried to design a tileable shelf and drawers that I could 3D-print and customize.
To start, I worked on designing a prototype for a single drawer. I did this because I wanted the final shelf to be composed of multiple small drawers I could combine if I needed a larger one. First, I needed to determine the drawer size, which ended up being about 3" x 1.5" x 1.5". After this, I made the CAD models for the drawer in Onshape and printed them. The shelf component of the prototype was good, but the drawer had a little too much room between itself and the shelf, so I designed a second drawer with its walls wider and moved the notches for the guide rails from the bottom of the drawer to the top. This second drawer was perfect, so I began working on making the larger shelf.
First, I combined four of the small shelves to make the large shelf. Out of curiosity, I exported the file into my 3D printer's slicing program to see what the print time could look like. It turned out that if I printed on my current settings, it would take 16 hours to complete, and even when I turned up the speed, it would still take about 12. On top of that, I planned on adding a fastening mechanism so that different shelves could be held together, which would add even more time to the print. Because of this, it would take two days to print both the shelf and the four drawers that go with it. I knew going into this that print time would be an issue, but I didn't think it would be this bad. Thus, the benefits of customizing my storage were far outweighed by the print time, so I decided to buy a storage shelf. This was disappointing, but I still had fun working on this project, and maybe if I ever get a faster printer, I could try it again.