How to 3D Print Custom Tool Organizers for ANYTHING!

hey welcome back today I'm going to show you how I organized my tool drawers by 3D printing tons of these organizers that are based on the gfinity system so let's Jump Right In this might be surprising to a lot of you but my favorite object in this entire Workshop actually isn't a tool or machine of some sort it's this tool cabinet this thing is All Steel and it weighs over 300 kg empty and it's made by a company called Lista and they make about the highest quality functional furniture out there normally these things cost an absolute Fortune but some years ago I got incredibly lucky and was able to score this used for a really good price and it being used really makes no difference because these things will last your lifetime I love the layout of this because it has these gigantic flat drawers that are perfect for storing a huge amount of tools while wasting as little space as possible so almost all of my smaller tools live in this cabinet the drawers on this are rated to carry up to 120 kg each which is insane and that's why a lot of places also use these to store materials you can get a ton of accessories for these cabinets to organize the stuff within them and for a lot of things I'm using those but the topic of this video is custom storage so let's get to the point here one thing that the storage solutions that come with these cabinets don't work well for is my measuring drawer I got a lot of stuff in here that doesn't really fit into any readymade compartments and while it looks somewhat organized here nothing really has a fixed place and the bigger issue is that when closing the drawers things tend to slide around and there and also bump into each other which is something you want to avoid with measuring tools like these so I figured I'd take some time to come up with a solution for this and if you watched my recent videos you know I've been playing around with gfinity a lot which is perfect for this application gfinity is basically just an open- Source framework for making organizing systems and it's all based around this grid system that you can print yourself and then either use existing models like these basic bins here that fit into the system or make your own custom ones which is what we're going to do today while we're at it another drawer I want to tackle is the top one which mostly contains a big socket set and various other bits and adapters while storing this inside the case it came in works okay I'm not a big fan of these blow molded cases they work okay if you're actually moving around with your tools but since this always stays in the same place plucking these tools out of their molds and putting them back in is pretty inconvenient and this thing is also not very space efficient so I want to fix that by making custom organizers for this one as well so next I'm going to show you the process of how I actually designed and made all these things and show you some different workflows there's different ways of how you can model the molds and it depends a little bit on the shape of the tool so I'm going to start with a fairly basic one like this Square here for something like this the easiest way is to just measure the basic dimensions and write them down since this is a very simple geometric shape this should be easy to build and catch even for a beginner once you know the overall size of the object it's now time to translate that into a grid Infinity Grid in this case the object is about 205 by 130 mm long so all you're going to do then is divide the length and width by 42 which is the standard grid size and then round up that number for example in this case the length comes out to 4.88 grid units so we can round that up to five and doing the same with the width we know know that the container for this needs to be at least 4X five units so next let's jump into cat to actually create that container I'm using Autodesk Fusion but you can generally create these assets in pretty much any cat software Fusion just happens to be the most convenient right now because people have already created some tools to make this as easy as possible one of them is using the template from Zack fredman which you can find under his gfinity introduction video that I'm going to link in the description this is basically just a fusion file that contains a dummy grid Infinity box and grid and it has variables set up that you can change to make it any size you want that being said if you want to make more specific changes to the model you'd have to start going into the timeline here to deactivate or changed some features but there is an even easier way of doing all this and that's using the gfinity generator plugin you can find on the Autodesk app store you can just download this plugin for free and it's super easy to install into fusion and once you've done that you're going to find a new button that lets you open up this menu this allows you to not only create a blank cinity block any size you want but there's also tons of additional settings and you can even use this to make bins with custom divisions already built into them in this case all we really need to do is to set up how many units we need in the XY Direction and then also the height of the box the height units are multiples of seven and I would always make these boxes just tall enough to fit the tools to save filament so this depends a bit on how thick the tools are as for the other options I usually pick solid here since we're going to extrude our shapes into the block and as I mentioned I usually deactivate all the holes on the bottom and also the lip that enables you to stack vins on top of each other since that's not needed here so now that we have our blank box I just create a sketch on the top surface and start drawing the shapes according to what I just measured which is really simple in this case since it's all just re rectangles once that's done I can just extrude these shapes into the blank as deep as I need them and of course you want the objects to stick out a little bit or add some holes to make sure you're actually able to grab the object now the fact that gfinity is based on a grid means these tool organizers are usually going to be rectangular although it is possible to make other shapes I'm going to show you an example of that later but what that means for us right now is if we make an organizer that's 4x5 units and we just put this one tool in it we'd be wasting a huge amount of space for nothing so what I did with these was to just try and find combinations of tools that I can fit together in the same space to utilize the most of that area I did usually try to group similar tools together but sometimes they also ended up compromising on that idea to use the space most efficiently with that this simple organizer is already done and ready for printing there's only one thing to keep in mind which is that you need to account for tolerances in your model this depends a bit on your printer but generally you want to add something around5 mm to your outer Dimensions to avoid the fit being too tight so here's the actual print now quality wise this came out great as always but this was the first one I made and I promptly messed up because I got some kind of measuring error in there causing this shallow edge here to be too far down but it's a very minor mistake so I didn't feel like it's worth reprinting the whole thing and Luckily everything else fits very nice but it goes to show that you really want to triple check all your measurements before you start printing something like this as for the other two openings I still had some Spades left so I figured I'd just use that for these threading gauges I Ed the same approach you just saw for most of the tools that have simple shapes so now let's see what we can do about slightly more complex shapes a good example for this is this digital caliper you could of course take a lot of measurements to create the outline for this but nobody got time for that and it's not critical that the shape is absolutely perfect so my solution for this is to work off a reference image for that I'm placing this on my cutting mat which is very useful for this kind of thing as you'll see in a second I've lined up the straight edge on the tool with the Grid on the mat and I'm going to take a reference picture of it and for this you want to make sure you take the picture from straight above and right over the center of the object to minimize any perspective distortion on most phone camera apps when you hold the phone like this you actually get this little dot in the center which is basically a water level so in this case the dot goes yellow once the phone is perfectly level and that's when you want to take the picture now I can load this image into Fusion using the canvas function and now I'm going to show you two reasons why it's incredibly useful to have the Grid in there first of all I can now use the grid to rotate my reference picture if necessary so that the lines match up with the digital grid and I can also use it to get the scaling right Fusion has a feature for this which is called calibrate and when you click this it lets you draw a reference line that it's then going to use to scale the canvas so that it matches the scale of the virtual space since I know that the lines on this grid use a 10 mm spacing I just look for a place where the lines have the least Distortion which is going to be towards the center of the image and then I just draw a line exactly five squares long and I tell Fusion that this is 50 mm and it's now going to scale my canvas accordingly now that our reference image is scaled and rotated perfectly I can use this as a template to draw a sketch outline around the object and then extrude that into my blank box when I started using this method I was always a little paranoid about the prints ending up way too tight so I added way too much tolerance around the shapes which as it turns out isn't actually necessary over time I figured out that if you take a really good picture and adjust the canvas carefully this method is actually surprisingly accurate and I could have added way less tolerance but then again it's not a big deal for this to float in there a little bit and if you're wondering what the other space in the Box was for it's for this protractor which happened to fit together with the calipers quite well after adding a little bit of overlap and as you probably guessed I modeled the shape for that one by hand because it's really just a circle and a rectangle so no need for a reference picture for this one so next let's step it up a little bit and check out something even more complex which is these digital micrometers again modeling these by measuring every detail on them would take way too long for what I'm trying to achieve here so I once again took a reference picture and Drew the outlines and while the objects before were pretty flat these also have a more complex shape in the vertical Direction but instead of recreating the exact shape I mostly just looked at the difference in thickness between different surfaces on the bottom of these and measured the knobs in the back to extrude some cylinders and just kind of approximated where the molds would need some clearance in them so the objects don't wobble and again I added way too much tolerance run the outside to prevent a misprint and also had to add a little rubber strip here because the larger one wasn't balanced well so while this box works fine in general it could use some improvement which brings us to another method to approach this there actually is a way to get a real life object into a 3D application that doesn't involve any modeling and that's called 3D scanning there's multiple ways to scan objects like photogrametry where you use pictures of an object to try and generate a model but the best way is to use a dedicated device for this called a 3D scanner and it was actually completely by chance that when I was almost done with this project I was approached by a company that makes 3D scanners so big thanks to Revel point for sponsoring this video by sending me their Flagship scanner which is called the moracco unlike other scanners which often work in conjunction with a smartphone this is actually a completely independent device that has everything built into it to a create scans from start to finish it looks and feels a little bit like a DSLR camera EX except that it doesn't have one big lens but rather this whole array of sensors that's used to scan objects in real time it also comes with a ton of accessories and feels like a really high quality device which is backed up by some impressive technical specs after some setup you can immediately start scanning stuff and there's a few different ways to use this device for small to mediumsized objects there is the classic way that lots of these scanners utilize which is to put the object on this little turntable which comes with the scanner with this you can spin the object around where the scanner remain stationary and captures data from allsides but with the moraco you don't actually need that because you can also move the scanner itself around the object while it captures data automatically the cool thing about this is that it not only lets you capture small objects but it actually has a near mode and a far mode so in Far mode allows you to capture fairly large objects by walking around them which is what I did with my band saw or with this toolbox here once you're done scanning you can either process the models directly in the scanner or you can put them onto a computer and use the software that comes with the scanner and this is used to refine and finalize the models for example by deleting bits of the model you don't need so I scanned my palm sander here just as a test and in the model you can really see the high resolution you're able to capture with this where even the small surface details like those dimples on top are fully present another really cool feature is that you can even capture objects in full color so here's the fully textured version that you could use as an asset for 3D rendering so to give you a practical example here I scanned this infrared thermometer to make another custom organizer for it this object is a good example of how the scanner saves you a ton of work because it has a pretty organic shape that would take a lot of time to recreate and Cat by hand after scanning this and refining the model I then created another grid Infinity block infusion and converted that into a mesh and then I just imported my scan model and used the combined function to cut a negative of that shape into the box I then exported this to the bamboo slicer and also added a bit of extra clearance by using the horizontal hole expansion parameter to make sure it doesn't sit too tight in there and then I just hit print the scans from the maraco are very accurate with Precision up to 02 mm so it wasn't surprising that this fits in there perfectly and I once again probably could have added less clearance if I wanted this to be even more formfitting so overall I think this device is super useful for any kind of prototyping and of course Very powerful in conjunction with a 3D printer especially the Morocco has tons of other features I can over in this short presentation but if you're interested you should definitely check out the links in the description where you can find more info and also a discount code and you might also want to check out their YouTube channel which has a lot of tutorials and examples around 3D scanning and with that let's get back to the project like I mentioned I didn't get my hands on the scanner until after I was basically done with this project which is why I made most of the organizers the oldfashioned way so here's a few more of those most of which are quite simple I made these for some dial indicators which unfortunately had to be pretty big at 2x6 units but I also made these little 1X two ones which are perfect for the dial test indicators here's a bit of an odd one this is L-shaped because I couldn't figure out a good use of the remaining space and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to use good Infinity like this but it actually works out perfectly and happens to fit the boxes I showed you before on the side here's another one that has some slight vertical overlap that allowed me to squeeze these two tools into a two s space and so far with the overlapping ones I've always managed to make them so that you can retrieve the tool on the bottom without removing the one on top here's another big one for some micrometers again I used the reference picture method to make this and added a bit too much clearance here and this is another case where I probably would have used the 3D scanner if I had it at the time but this still works fine with this one I've been cheating a bit because these things almost fit into a 4x2 space and I was too stubborn to make it bigger so they stick out the side very slightly but it's not an issue as long as this sits next to a piece of the same height here's another odd one this is the only organizer I couldn't fit even on my large printer in one piece but since all of these will be aligned on the grid anyway it's actually perfectly valid solution to just split them up so I printed this in two pieces to fit this large combination square and the depth gauge and once it sits in the grid this acts as if it was one piece so you can store fairly large tools this way even if you have a small printer with that it's now finally time to put all this stuff into the draw so first I'm placing the grids and then as always with grid Infinity you can spend an endless amount of time playing Tetris with these and moving everything around to find the best layout and this is what I ended up with for now obviously this is a lot more tidy than before everything has its fixed place and nothing is able to slide around anymore but what I was most surprised by is how much space this ended up saving because I thought I might actually need more space in the end but as you can see there's still quite a bit of room if I want to add additional tools with that let's now move on to the socket set which I also printed a bunch of organizers for luckily with these the process is a lot more straightforward since all of this is basically just cylinders so there's no need to take any pictures or scans I would just place a set of sockets on the grid and then figure out a good way to position them which usually is just a straight line and there's actually an even easier way to figure out how many grid units you need that doesn't involve any measuring and that's to just use an existing gfinity print in case you have one I got this basic bin here for example which tells me that fitting these into six units would be pretty cramped but seven seems to be a good spacing so I just created a 1x7 blank infusion drew a circle and use the pattern function to create a row of those and then it just comes down to measuring each socket and changing the diameter accordingly once again you do want to make sure to add enough tolerance for this purpose I want these to be easy to retrieve so I added about 3/10 of a millimeter to most of the hols and that ended up giving me a fit where the sockets slide in and out of the hols pretty easy but without having a lot of play I also added some lettering to this box and I have the luxury of being able to print it with up to four colors on my X1 Carbon here thanks to the IMs so I made the letters White and the reason this is gray on the bottom is just I happen to have a lot of cheap gray filament at the time so I printed most of it in Gray and then the top in black and white to improve the contrast all the other boxes work the same way I just grabbed a bunch of sockets and played around with the layout a bit for the long sockets I can store them standing up because they won't fit in the drawers that way so these are laying flat but it's basically the same process except you just extrude the cylinder sideways and for these sockets that have significant tapers I also added a little step so they don't Wobble the small bits here are even easier these all have the same size so I really just need to measure one and then I made these 1x3 organizers that fit 12 of them each then we have these guys which are a little bit bigger than normal screwdriver bits so I just Ed the same box layout I just showed you except with hexagonal holes and then for All the Small Bits this is the only one where I got a bit lazy and used models I found online and modified them a bit although I probably could have modeled them myself in the time it took me to find and download them I also downloaded this design for the longer bits but I really can't recommend it this is a pretty poor design because they tend to fall out super super easily but it's going to do for now this one for the long bits on the other hand works perfectly then it was time to sort all the bits into these containers I generally suggest to stick with the 1ex one bins for most of the stuff because those allow you to organize bits a bit better by making small groups but the large ones work well for stuff like these various artball security bits that I never use anyway now it's time to finally empty that blow molded box the sockets set came in and yes this was just a satis as it [Music] [Music] looks one thing I really like about this whole custom organizer thing is that it lets me consolidate different tool sets into one cohesive system so for example I have a bunch of additional small sockets from another set here and I can now combine all of these together and get rid of all the bulky cases I then emptied out the drawer again and you're probably wondering why I didn't make any molds for the ratchets and other accessories and the reason is that as I mentioned mentioned in the beginning the Lista cabinets come with their own organizing system which actually works perfectly for that kind of thing so I'm going to use a combination of those methods the system is based on these cylindrical trays which really are kind of Genius they come in different sizes and can be attached together to create rows as long as you want and then you can add dividers to create individual compartments so it's a very flexible system which is absolutely perfect for storing stuff like drills or anything where you might want to change the layout frequently just like with infity this system is super satisfying to use because it feels a little bit like playing with Legos so I think these two are a great combination and I probably don't need to mention you could also 3D print a similar system but I'm pretty sure it would end up being more expensive than just buying them from Lista the cool thing about this solution is that it's very adaptable for different sized objects so I can now consolidate all my different socket wrenches ratchets and extensions in one place and there's also plenty of space for stuff like random sockets all kinds of adapters and anything that doesn't need to be in a labeled compartment for example I now have all the quarin adapters from different sets in the same place which makes a lot more sense than plucking them from three different cases now it's finally time to finish this by placing the printed organizers in here as well and once again I'm playing around with the layout which most likely isn't final yet [Music] once again I was really surprised by the sheer amount of space this saved compared to the original box but what's even better is that it's so much quicker and more comfortable to retrieve tools from here because you can now just grab stuff and put it back without any resistance and the clear labeling also really helps another cool thing is that I can now grab a whole bunch of sockets all at once and bring them to the workbench which I think is going to save me a lot of walking around because I never bothered hauling around the entire case the way it was set up before I think I'm done with this organizing Madness at least for now because as satisfying as it is I can't deny that it does take a lot of time but I also know this kind of thing really pays off for years once you've done it so I'd say it was definitely worth it hopefully you could take away something useful from this video and if anyone happens to own the same socket set I put the files for the socket or organizers up on Etsy in case you're interested that's it for this one thanks for watching and see you next time

Channel: Phil Vandelay

Views: 167,625

Keywords: revopoint, 3dscanner, mircao, 3dscanning, 3dmodeling, revoscan, 3d printing, tools, organization, toolorganization, gridfinity, workshop, metalwork, measuring, caliper, micrometer, autodeskfusion, fusion360, fusion

Id: kXay9wYWsGs

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2024