Hex Slider Box

Howdy, hexagon fans! 🤘🧐🤘

Yes! It's a roll-top box with a lid made of hexagons! What more could you ask of life, really, but more hexagons?

While this did end up as a roll-top box, I really just set out to make a box where the lid would move entirely out of the way so that, for example, a bunch of boxes could sit next to each other on a workshop bench without a need to clear space for a hinged lid folding over the back. There are a bunch of ways to approach this problem, but there be dragons in these waters!

An early idea had a different kind of articulated lid - one that hinged at the back but then folded in the middle and stored away at the back of the box. The problem was that the lid pieces needed to print vertically, and at the scale of these boxes that meant a precarious balancing piece vulnerable to detachment failures in late-stage printing. Besides, printing a lid like that vertically just seemed so inefficient and I was determined there must be a better way.

One entirely viable approach would have been to just have two lid halves print separately, sit neatly on top, and then be simply tucked away in slots at the front and back. Simple but effective. However, by the time that thought occurred it was too late and I was all excited about sliding hexagons!

You see, I originally had no intention to print upside-down, because of the usual issue of printing a box base in mid-air, especially a large one. However, I'd also decided that I wanted to dimension one of the boxes to hold game cards, but I wanted the option to either include dividers or not, depending on the box usage. So, I figured I'd just make inserts for the box... but that also meant that there was no need for a base in the main box at all! So slide-top box was go! 

I lost track of how many versions of the actual sliding mechanism I went through before I found an approach that didn't get endlessly jammed up, especially when the lid rounded the lower curve and gravity no longer kept things flat and well-aligned. Most of the problems really just came down to making sure the track curvature wasn't too tight, and making sure the hinges in the lid were constrained in their motion and not allowed to just flop around.

Of course, the hexagons are not all disconnected from each other - this kind of slide mechanism relies on rigidity across the width of the lid - so the lid is actually comprised of a line of zigzagging hexagons.

But back to the thought about getting the lid out of the way! There were two more constraints that have particular relevance to that concern, it turns out.

The first one is that the lid needed a good, reliable, positive place to come to a stop, and it had to be a place that made it easy to pull the lid closed again.

The second thing was that the lid needed to move out of the way as far as possible so that the insert could be put in place. And, I wanted the insert to occupy the entire space that wasn't required for the lid track void and maximise the use of the box volume (well, in as much as you're ever going to do that with a slide-top box).

And so that's where we've ended up! Oh, I'd better mention what the models actually are:

1) Shorter narrow version

2) Taller narrow version

3) Taller wide version

And for each of those there is a matching insert, but the taller narrow version also has a second insert that includes two low dividing walls intended for cards (it'll fit standard cards in sleeves). 

Print Description

This is an articulated print that relies very much on having a nice, neat bottom layer! So, as usual, make sure there aren't any print issues like stringing or overextrusion that might bind moving parts together.

It's well worth just keeping an eye on the first layer or two, just in case a hexagon doesn't adhere. I had a couple of prints where I didn't check and didn't find out until the print was done that the first layer had messed up, and I was quite sad.

Print Dimensions

The tall, wide box occupies 209mm x 170mm on the print bed and is 123mm tall.

Supports Needed?

Not at all!  Designed for straightforward printing!

Scalability

Hmm, you could try it, but there's a lot that could go wrong as those tolerances change! The biggest issue with scaling up will be an increased likelihood of things jamming up and not running smoothly. As usual with scaling down, the issue will be potential binding of moving parts.

That said, I'm going to kick off a scaled-down print right now just to see how it goes :D And now it's printing while I type, and I'm not paying attention to that first layer despite what I wrote above. Well, hopefully it's all going fine, and we'll regroup in Further Thoughts below and see how it went!

Print Orientation

The insert prints right-way-up, while the box body with lid prints upside-down.