April 30, 2026
Description
When I was looking for screw/nut cases/organizers online, it was frustrating that none had exactly all the compartments I needed for the various items. After all, there were all designed by others who had their own very specific needs. Inevitably, the ones I printed never were quite right since they were always designed by individuals who had their own collection of screws/nuts/bolts etc. I started designing one for my own needs-- but what if I needed to change the compartments as my needs changed? As I was designing a medication case/organizer to meet the needs of a family member, one of the designs I was working on eventually led to this idea. Thus, this project was born.
I had several goals for this project:
1) Print with no supports
2) Modular, can arrange in any order and all parts fit together
3) Can change parts as needed to fit needs without needing to reprint the entire thing.
4) Customizable in both inserts and size of container
The boxes are exact, fit snugly and stay in the frame without needing the anchors. However, you may need to slightly adjust sizes depending on the tolerances of your own printer. To compensate for this variability, I added an extra 0.2mm of interior space in the frame for every 75mm of the frame – for example, the 100 mm x 100 mm is designed as a 100.4 mm x 100.4 mm interior space. Nevertheless, you may need slightly change the size if the boxes do not fit quite right. If your printer has elephant feet, make sure to trim them off. Also, depending on the tolerances of your printer, if you put many small boxes in the frame there may be even more variance. Thus, for the larger frames, you may want to print out the inner boxes first and measure the dimensions first; you can thenresize the outer frame in the slicer if needed.
Some other thoughts:
I used PETG at 0.2mm layer height and it worked fine. I have not tested other filaments, but I expect most will work fine.
Although the model printed great on my Prusa Core One, I added a triangular joint to the edges to allow a little give for variation in tolerances of different printers. That joint may not work as well for stiffer/brittle filaments. However, if you have excellent tolerances on your printer, it should not matter.
In Prusaslicer, I printed the 200x225 cover with 10% infill and 3 top/bottom layers at 0.2mm height which brought the filament use from 120 to 96gm of filament on my Core One. Interestingly, when I sliced the model in Orcaslicer for my Centauri Carbon, the same setting change brought the filament use from 109gm to 106 gm.
As a general rule:
USE THE ANCHORS WHEN YOU WANT THE INNER BOXES TO STAY FIRMLY IN THE CONTAINER. You can take them out again, but it will take some force -- I needed to use pliers)
DO NOT USE THE ANCHORS WHEN YOU WANT TO EASILY REMOVE/INSERT THE BOXES (say for example when you use it for a board game organizer.
To personalize/customize the organizer further by adding writing to the cover using the slicer, hit "T" on your keyboard (in Prusaslicer or Orcaslicer) and type what you wish.
If you want multicolor on the label but do not have an AMS/MMU/toolchanger, simply add a color change to the model at 3.00 mm (if you are using 0.2mm heights)
For those of you who want to customize the cover with labels, to make it easier I added a model in a 25mm grid pattern so that you can put the labels in the desired area. Just plan out the boxes. I printed some of the various sizes first and checked fit for the parts I needed. Once I knew what size boxes and how many, I then printed them out and arranged them in an order that worked for me. I then chose the appropriate size outer box and cover.
Once you know the layout, in the slicer, when getting ready to print the cover, just add the 25mm grid overlay, type "T" to add text, and move the text to the appropriate area using the grid and your layout. Once all the text labels are done don't forget to delete the grid before you slice and print.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial
10
Hamilcar
