A viewer sent me a link to some great looking socket holders also using gridfinity! It's for 3/8" and 1/2" and you twist the socket to lock it into place so it doesn't fall out. Take a look if you're also looking for a socket organizer! www.printables.com/model/680228-tracktwist-socket-holder-12-inch-and-38-inch-drive Otherwise the rest of the models I designed are available for free on my website at: www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
After messing around for 2 weeks with my 10 year old diy printer after I found gridfinity to organize my Shop, I bought a bambu p1s and never looked back. 6x6 grids even fit on it and it prints really fast.
Awesome!! If youre interested I have some printer recommendations for different prices on my website: www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity Once you have a printer you endup finding lots of uses for them!
I have started doing the same thing and have found the efficiency gains are real! Thanks for posting your files. I need to post some of the bins I designed for some Allen drivers as well. If anybody is thinking about doing this; it’s well worth it!
I’m a polymath and I finally picked up a 3D printer and I’m doing the same thing. My auto tools, my small electronics tools, my gardening tools plus small cute pots, my chef/cooking tools, watch repair tools, etc etc etc. I picked up the gender 3 v3 SE and it is able to do a 5x5 no issue, $200 new but they have had sales recently that got it down to $160
Fellow polymath here, and if you've got a Microcenter close, they've got an in-store only sale going on thru the end of October where you can get a Creality K1 for $200 off the normal price of $579... $379 for the K1 is an awesome opportunity! I'm seriously thinking about settling on the K1 and the K1 Max as the workhorses for my Stable. Good luck and happy printing!
@@DigitalDoyle sadly, we don’t have a micro center. I picked up the Ender v3 SE from creality’s sale for $160. So far I’ve printed 10 base plates and a few bins and I’m loving this little guy, wish I had bought two at that price 😂. I wish it had wifi but from what I’ve read online, I can upgrade this one to add that for like $50 (or just ignore it and save for my next 3D printer, using a modified version of Adam Savages philosophy of “buy cheapest then best that can afford” by adding “cheapest, within reason” lol.) this is my first 3D printer since 2014 when I lost everything from the (unrelated) fire. Using it as a learning experience, got to relearn CAD, a new coding language, and update my knowledge of 3D printers since a lot changed in the 10 years. My next printer I plan to save up for and spend like $500 on, most likely a resin printer or something with multiple colours. Not any time soon though, just got laid off; finding work as a polymath is not fun lol
@@AshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAsh :: Hang in there. Polymath, at least for me, usually means multi-skilled in multiple disciplines and that's worked really well for me my entire life. I've learned that things are cyclical and when demand for one skill tapers off, demand for another skill is on the rise. I've almost always been self employed, riding one tech wave after another, as I vastly prefer freedom to money, and I highly recommend it if you have the required discipline level. Hope you find another occupational wave you can ride really soon. I'm working on making the print farm profitable right now and making really good progress. Never give up! Everything happens for a reason. Best of luck to you!
@@DigitalDoyle oh I was meaning because A) many options and B) companies saying “you move industries a lot”. I’ve tried the self employed path a few times, would love to do it but I’m not a financial minded person. I understand the concept and can do wise investments but I end up trading a 40hr work week for a 80hr work week if I didn’t do a 9-5 because then I end up doing two jobs instead of one, financial taking up 40 hours by itself lol. Used to work with a guy and he was the financial mastermind but we split paths when he moved to help a passing relative. He’d do all the books, I’d do the imagination lol. Was a Walt and Roy situation
@@AshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAsh :: Ah! Understood. Unemployed polymath seemed an oxymoron. Totally get it. Main reason I went into business for myself was because I wound up doing a disproportionate amount of the work for always inadequate compensation and 'superiors' always taking credit thus advancing their careers and not mine. You're gonna be fine, then. Thankful to hear.
Good job! I just lost every tool and tool chest I own...and 14 classic vehicles, to a fire. Starting from scratch again, so I'll print your designs while I wait for the insurance to cough up!!. Thanks for making them ,and for the video's you put out.
ive been having fun making car parts. bought a qidi x plus 2 for 200 bones on marketplace. learning cad, ive unintentionally completely quit gaming, learning solidworks. making cold air intakes, air tag holders, organizers for dissassembling heads etc. really cool tool. 3d printing is slow. But i definitely couldn't weld sheet metal this fast, organizers, precise as i can on cad.
This is exactly what I was hoping to find. After seeing the gridfinity system I thought this would be a great way to organize all of my tools in my home garage. I have always been a home mechanic since I was a young guy and have done a little bit of everything but my work bench and tool chest is a mess. Most of the things on Zach's forum is for small tools and such like you said which is not a great help for me so thank you for sharing!!
I love the gridfinity system! I really like your Allen holder. Much cleaner than the one I designed. Thanks for making the models available. As far as budget printers there a really solid, the sovol sv06 and sv06plus. Especially the sv06 plus with its 300x300x340 build area and a filament runout sensor. I paid $350 for my sv06 plus but had to wait a few weeks to get it. Assembly is pretty much just bolting 2 parts together and clipping on the power supply. Took 10 minutes and had serviceable instructions. There are also plenty of yt videos covering it. I like having the larger build area because I can stack more parts on the plate and then let it rip while I'm doing other things. I'd rather have a 20-hour print than 2 10 hour prints. I was also able to get klipper going on my sv06 and my sv06 plus powered by an old laptop. Cut most of my print times by at least 25% while keeping tolerances and finish acceptable. Hope that's helpful to someone.
I don't have a better solution exactly. However I think I'll be trying lining the drawers with pegboard so i don't need to print that bit. Model for that and also add magnets to the bins likely to get set on project cars....heck the magnets might be enough for the toolbox or i may make a template to drill holes in the drawers for bin location, i simply dislike the material and print time for the grids.
Great video, found it while researching Gridfinity parts. I come from the 3d printer group and use it mostly for functional parts. Therefore I'm not using it often, but it's a godsend when I need it. Primarily for enclosures for electronics. Recently I designed a HEPA/active coal filter for a silencing box for my projector. Adapters for vacuums and wood working tools are common as well. Being able to design and print custom parts can make your life so much easier. I think it's a good choice to get a proper and big 3D printer in your case. If you like the Gridfinity system you might also like the Honeycomb Wall which is a similar community driven standard just for walls. I wouldn't hang a heavy hammer drill on it, but some smaller tools might fit great. I had a peg board before, but the accessories were hard to get and very expensive. Like 30$ for some hooks and some plastic boxes. The Honeycomb Wall is easy to extend and its easy to make custom parts for it too. Really like it!
I've literally been considering buying a 3D printer lately for this exact reason. What I don't have is the time for the learning curve of modeling. If I can find all the right models to download for easy printing then I'm a lot more likely to spend the time actually printing what I need. I spend a lot of time in Harbor Freight staring at the organizer section and wondering if any of it would make my toolbox cleaner, more organized and hold more tools. This could be the answer. Thanks man! (first time viewer, I'll check out your other videos - I see you are from Idaho, I'm from Utah your neighbor to the south)
One of the other good tricks with smaller tools is designing pockets for embedded magnets. Put a pause in your gcode just before the pockets get capped, drop your magnets in, then resume the print.
The only issue with this is that I tend to have metal dust and shavings around from fabricating, so anything magnetic just turns into a huge mess 😅. Works great if you dont do metal fabrication though!
Hey man, thanks a lot for your efforts. I do mostly use small tools and desk top equipment, but I really need to organize my bigger tools in my garage so I really appreciate your efforts to optimize the system for bigger tools. Thanks a lot man, your making my life a lot easier if nothing else.
very detailed and great information u have provide. thankyou very much. u are a good mechanical influencer. i really appreciate your efforts. Thank you very much for detailed explanation and templets
I have an eleagoo neptune plus 3. Got it for $250 usd and it can print a lot of different filaments. I mainly use rapid PLA. Prints bigger parts fast. 6 hours on ASA to about 2 hours because of print speed. About 1ft by 1ft by 15in print size.
Great video. There's another creator who came up with a similar idea called Alexandre Chappel, who I think GridFinity was based off of. I'm pretty sure it's a different grid size to GridFinity, but Chappel's a woodworker so a lot of his usecases for his own system is designed for bigger tools and whatnot. Worth a look into for inspiration
Hey. GREAT video. You REALLY do a wonderful job for us guys who are builders, doers and makers in other mediums. You explain your reasons, thoughts and ideas well. I took the 3D printer leap a couple of months ago for the Shop and have been very happy with projects I've found on maker sites as well as creating and making my own specific needs things. Once I thoroughly learn Fusion 360... LOOK OUT!! 🤣
As a Avid 3d printer user I Have some good recommendations myself for good 3d printers. For a budget I would go for the Ender 3 Pro rather than the Base 3, the little more money goes to a much better performance. For a mid range (still cheap though) I strongly recommend the elegoo Neptune 3 pro, Its a little more expensive than the ender 3 pro But you get an insane amount more. You get a direct drive extruder (opens up more filament options), it has auto bed leveling so that's one less thing you have to do every few prints, and more features that make it the best beginner printer on the market right now for it price. For a expensive one my two biggest recommendations are the prusha i3 printers for there really good reliability or bambulab which are equally as reliable and have a crapload of features.
Good suggestions, thank you for your comment! The only reason I didn't include the prusa on my high end list is that for the price you don't necessarily get any additional features (still open format so will struggle with exotics, etc). The Prusa is basically the same feature set as the cheaper printers, but more reliable and more robust. It seems more targeted for a heavy user of 3D printing rather than a beginner (like a print farm). Whereas a beginner going to a closed format printer that can reliably print engineering plastics might be more alluring to any engineers in the audience who may overlook 3D printing entirely if the only material options are PLA and ABS. This does beg the question of resin printers, but that's a topic for another day, also not beginner friendly 😅
Honestly I can't believe how much I use my 3d printer. When I talk to people they just don't understand why or what you would print. I think I print something for myself or family a couple times per week. One cool thing you could work in to your prints is adding embedded neodymium magnets. How good would it be to pop off that tray of tools and stick it to your work area? I embed them in everything. The plastic layer protects surfaces and your items stay put. Nice job BTW I'll have to check out some of your stuff.
Thank you! The embedded magnets would be great, however my problem is theres so much grinder dust and metal shavings in my garage magnets are just a mess 😅 i try to avoid them.
You literally just described my problem...I have the knick knacks but I also got the automotive tools...my workspace is a shit show...lol Thanks for the hard work with SW been meaning to do the same!!
You are just like me, totally disorganised and messy. Tool boxes have trays that are too shallow for most tools to be seen and stood on end long sockets will not go in. Did you make a cage to stop 10mm sockets from escaping?😊
Nice video! I’m in the midst of doing the same thing for my kitchen, using Alexandre Chappel’s grid system on which Gridfinity was based. There’s real benefit to the whole idea of “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” There’s also an intangible benefit, which is that it’s just that much more of a pleasure to work in the space when it’s well organized. By the way, just my opinion, but I think you could lose the second camera angle and save some time in the video editing. That whole off-axis camera gimmick is unnecessary and, to me, a little annoying.
it's not, but it's decent quality. I'm not actually aware of any made in the US. I have recommendations on my website, bottom of the page: www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
I've also used the 3d printer for multiple small parts fixes. I would say that CAD is necessary for that, since the best application for a 3d printer is to fix or improve something so specific, you can't find anything alike in the market.
Yeah, i definitely think CAD is the biggest barrier to entry. However I think pretty basic CAD can get you pretty far and isnt too hard to pick up! Atleast its a lot easier to find the motivation to learn it once you already have a 3D printer 😁
I hear good things about TinkerCAD for ease of use, but have never used it myself as I'm building out a 3DVR modeling rig using Plasticity, Blender, and the Quest 2 headset. Gonna be awesome! I'll be able to model things nano to cosmic and blatantly violate the laws of physics and good taste. ;)
I think this solution is amazing. I would like to same the same thing but with more custom bins. Never 3d printed before tho... I do mobile mechanic work, and my toolbox stays in the back of a box truck in the Texas heat. What type of filament do you recommend?
The easiest for temperature would be ABS. A little harder to print (get a heated bed) but better for a hot car. The files and some printer recommendations are on my website if you want them: www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity For other bins you could check thingiverse or thangs Also, for mobile mechanic stuff consider adding magnets to the bins to help hold things in place even better. Thats what the holes in the bottom of the bins are for, I just dont like magnets in my garage because they fill up with metal shavings 😅
PETG and ASA are also good choices for projects that need to tolerate higher temps, like inside a closed vehicle on a really hot day, or under the hood.
@@BuildSomethingAuto:: Also even a simple enclosure for your printer makes a huge difference when printing ABS and other high temp materials. I made them out of cheap 1/2" foam insulation panels taped together and cut a hole for a plexiglass viewport so I can see what's going on inside for my open frame Ender 3s and they work great. Nowadays I'm using the Enders primarily as filament dryers. And if folks are having problems with their printers, a LOT of times it's because the various filaments are hygroscopic (they suck up and store moisture from the ambient air) with the result that the moisture turns to steam as it passes thru the hot end and causes all kinds of problems like surface defects and blobbing and parts being ripped off the bed, etc. Dry filament solves a lot of problems and definitely makes your life easier.
Great video! I can totally relate and thank you for sharing your designs for our bigger tools. My printer might arrive today, can't wait to assemble the kit! :)
I have separate small carry boxes, if i need wrenches, go get the wrenches box, or the rachet and socket box, never seen anyone do that, do you have a idea why? I carry them to the car, and i can put the tool away in the box again, and never have the need to do a pile
I just subscribed! I cant wait to see what you make. I only have 3.5 printers and 1 full frame up project Jeep, 1 "just needs a motor" jeep, my daily driver jeep (also a project lol) and a suzuki samurai project lol.
This grid thing is avesome. If you use allen keys often, it simply won't work, Wiha ergostar (butterfly) holder is the way to go, have a look and thank me later. I'm tempted to buy my first printer and the more videos I watch the less decided I am 😂I want to be able to print usable parts out of nylon. I use Shapr3D for modeling as I was struggling with Fusion and Solidworks. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for your comment! I have some suggestions on my website for printers if youre interested, the qidi will do nylon and they have a couple cheaper options (affiliate links) www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity My only problem with that style of allen holder is that i find theyre often too tight, and you have to rotate all the other keys out of the way to get the one you want. My holder I find to be much quicker. But I havent tried the wiha one specifically
Excellent content! Well done. Liked and subscribed and looking forward to watching you use that very cool Qidi printer with engineering grade materials, as I am on that path as well. Thanks for making your models available. Will definitely be downloading and printing them. Can't speak for Zach, but I've been watching his videos for a long time and I'll bet he'd be thrilled with your application of his Gridfinity system. I'm currently building a 3D print farm I'm having a ball with it. It's great to have micro manufacturing and rapid prototyping capabilities for my R&D projects for my and my buddies' race cars and many other things. Just a suggestion re modeling software for anyone interested; there's an application called Plasticity that's really intuitive and amazing. It's not free, but it is not expensive and it's excellent and fun to use. And, just to make people aware, there are many workflows for Blender that let you gear things directly toward precision hard surface modeling, as opposed to the organic stuff with which Blender's commonly associated. I'm a motion graphics, interactive programmer, VR, webdev, video and audio production guy, in addition to all the other weird stuff I'm into, and a cool new feature of Plasticity is it's ability to live-link your models into Blender, which is a really interesting and useful workflow. Anyway, great job! I've currently got 2 Bambu Labs P1Ps and a Creality K1 along with 5 Ender 3s and an Elegoo Saturn 2 rig for resin stuff, so far, and the newest printers are just friggin' amazing. I've built an enclosed print farm space in my Shop/Studio that'll eventually hold around 40 printers that I'm working to fill, bit by bit.
I got it at costco almost 10 years ago, brand is "toolmaster", just some cheapo box. I originally thought the side cabinets would be pretty useful but frankly id rather just have more drawers for the space. If I were looking now Id probably buy a harbor freight box. Theres a lot of their tools I wouldnt buy, but toolboxes and jacks from there seem to work well.
Try to put a predetermined number of tools away when you're done for the day. That way, even if you don't put them all away, it's still better than searching for ALL of them.
You're wasting steps designing it then printing it to check fit. Take a picture and design around that if your software allows you to use refrence images.
I often do that as well, but the problem is that a camera photo isn't isometric, so the dimensions further away from the lense don't match the dimensions up close to the lense. Photos within CAD work great for getting a rough estimation of a shape, but IMO you still need to measure by hand or print a test. Granted, I'm sure it would have been good enough for this application. If you have a trick to make the photo isometric I'd love to hear it, it'd save some time when tolerances are tighter. I try to avoid zooming and take the photo further away to minimize the effect, but it's still present.
@@BuildSomethingAuto If all your measurements are made on a single plane perpendicular to the camera's view ray, they should transfer isometricly. Failing that, you can reduce perspective effects by keeping the camera far away (as you're doing) and keeping the measurements close to the optic center of the image (this is almost always the actual image center, but could be different if the camera is built with its lens not centered over the sensor.)
Good point! Although I over generalized in the video, I think the important thing to remember is that China will build things to your spec. If you spec high quality, and implement high QC standards, it can be built well even coming from China. The problem is that often things are made there for the opposite reason - because corners and costs can be cut. Being made in China doesn't mean it can't be high quality, it just means it isn't necessarily so. I've heard stories that 2 different products in China could be built on the same production line by the same people, but when the lower QC standard companies products come onto the line they roll the brand new, tight, nice production equipment off the line, and roll in the old clapped out loose tolerance equipment, since they know they aren't hitting as tight of tolerances anyways and there's no need to wear out their nice equipment. Not sure if that's true or not, but I worked in manufacturing for a time and I can absolutely see that being the case 😅.
Kaizen foam is foam used for kaizen 😉. The reason I use that term is because when you search for it thats what comes up immediately. The "lean" idea is that everything has its place and you can immediately visually tell if things are missing which can be accomplished by outlining each tool as a cutout in the foam, similar to a "shadow board". This is why I said it takes so much space because stacking tools would be against this visual principle and so would putting multiple things in a single bin. Great for production, bad for space.
Yup! It's my brothers, and now it's a turbo miata 😅. Here's the first video on it if you're interested, more coming soon. th-cam.com/video/uRFMlolisP0/w-d-xo.html
A viewer sent me a link to some great looking socket holders also using gridfinity! It's for 3/8" and 1/2" and you twist the socket to lock it into place so it doesn't fall out. Take a look if you're also looking for a socket organizer!
www.printables.com/model/680228-tracktwist-socket-holder-12-inch-and-38-inch-drive
Otherwise the rest of the models I designed are available for free on my website at:
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
After messing around for 2 weeks with my 10 year old diy printer after I found gridfinity to organize my Shop, I bought a bambu p1s and never looked back. 6x6 grids even fit on it and it prints really fast.
I think I'm going to but a 3D printer just to print Gridfinity bins. This system is awesome.
Awesome!! If youre interested I have some printer recommendations for different prices on my website:
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
Once you have a printer you endup finding lots of uses for them!
I have started doing the same thing and have found the efficiency gains are real! Thanks for posting your files. I need to post some of the bins I designed for some Allen drivers as well. If anybody is thinking about doing this; it’s well worth it!
I've been working through my tools, starting with sockets. Thanks for the video, some great points to focus design on.
I’m a polymath and I finally picked up a 3D printer and I’m doing the same thing. My auto tools, my small electronics tools, my gardening tools plus small cute pots, my chef/cooking tools, watch repair tools, etc etc etc.
I picked up the gender 3 v3 SE and it is able to do a 5x5 no issue, $200 new but they have had sales recently that got it down to $160
Fellow polymath here, and if you've got a Microcenter close, they've got an in-store only sale going on thru the end of October where you can get a Creality K1 for $200 off the normal price of $579... $379 for the K1 is an awesome opportunity! I'm seriously thinking about settling on the K1 and the K1 Max as the workhorses for my Stable. Good luck and happy printing!
@@DigitalDoyle sadly, we don’t have a micro center. I picked up the Ender v3 SE from creality’s sale for $160. So far I’ve printed 10 base plates and a few bins and I’m loving this little guy, wish I had bought two at that price 😂. I wish it had wifi but from what I’ve read online, I can upgrade this one to add that for like $50 (or just ignore it and save for my next 3D printer, using a modified version of Adam Savages philosophy of “buy cheapest then best that can afford” by adding “cheapest, within reason” lol.) this is my first 3D printer since 2014 when I lost everything from the (unrelated) fire. Using it as a learning experience, got to relearn CAD, a new coding language, and update my knowledge of 3D printers since a lot changed in the 10 years. My next printer I plan to save up for and spend like $500 on, most likely a resin printer or something with multiple colours. Not any time soon though, just got laid off; finding work as a polymath is not fun lol
@@AshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAsh :: Hang in there. Polymath, at least for me, usually means multi-skilled in multiple disciplines and that's worked really well for me my entire life. I've learned that things are cyclical and when demand for one skill tapers off, demand for another skill is on the rise. I've almost always been self employed, riding one tech wave after another, as I vastly prefer freedom to money, and I highly recommend it if you have the required discipline level. Hope you find another occupational wave you can ride really soon. I'm working on making the print farm profitable right now and making really good progress. Never give up! Everything happens for a reason. Best of luck to you!
@@DigitalDoyle oh I was meaning because A) many options and B) companies saying “you move industries a lot”.
I’ve tried the self employed path a few times, would love to do it but I’m not a financial minded person. I understand the concept and can do wise investments but I end up trading a 40hr work week for a 80hr work week if I didn’t do a 9-5 because then I end up doing two jobs instead of one, financial taking up 40 hours by itself lol. Used to work with a guy and he was the financial mastermind but we split paths when he moved to help a passing relative. He’d do all the books, I’d do the imagination lol. Was a Walt and Roy situation
@@AshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAshAsh :: Ah! Understood. Unemployed polymath seemed an oxymoron. Totally get it. Main reason I went into business for myself was because I wound up doing a disproportionate amount of the work for always inadequate compensation and 'superiors' always taking credit thus advancing their careers and not mine. You're gonna be fine, then. Thankful to hear.
Good job! I just lost every tool and tool chest I own...and 14 classic vehicles, to a fire. Starting from scratch again, so I'll print your designs while I wait for the insurance to cough up!!. Thanks for making them ,and for the video's you put out.
Oof, sorry to hear that. Your name checks out though, best of luck rising from the ashes!
ive been having fun making car parts.
bought a qidi x plus 2 for 200 bones on marketplace.
learning cad, ive unintentionally completely quit gaming, learning solidworks.
making cold air intakes, air tag holders, organizers for dissassembling heads etc.
really cool tool.
3d printing is slow.
But i definitely couldn't weld sheet metal this fast, organizers, precise as i can on cad.
Great content, production value of your videos are going up which is awesome to see. Please keep making videos!
This is exactly what I was hoping to find. After seeing the gridfinity system I thought this would be a great way to organize all of my tools in my home garage. I have always been a home mechanic since I was a young guy and have done a little bit of everything but my work bench and tool chest is a mess. Most of the things on Zach's forum is for small tools and such like you said which is not a great help for me so thank you for sharing!!
Love the box! The modular desing is great, love the builds, love the channel!
Thank you so much!
I have had a 3D printer for a while now, but after watching this video and zach's videos I'm starting my gridfinity adventure! Great video
Enjoyed your video journey. I’m an Electrical Engineer woodworker. Your analysis will help me bring 3D printing into my woodshop. Thanks
Great video! I’ve had a 3D printer for a while and I can print stuff while working on other stuff
I love the gridfinity system! I really like your Allen holder. Much cleaner than the one I designed. Thanks for making the models available.
As far as budget printers there a really solid, the sovol sv06 and sv06plus. Especially the sv06 plus with its 300x300x340 build area and a filament runout sensor. I paid $350 for my sv06 plus but had to wait a few weeks to get it. Assembly is pretty much just bolting 2 parts together and clipping on the power supply. Took 10 minutes and had serviceable instructions. There are also plenty of yt videos covering it. I like having the larger build area because I can stack more parts on the plate and then let it rip while I'm doing other things. I'd rather have a 20-hour print than 2 10 hour prints. I was also able to get klipper going on my sv06 and my sv06 plus powered by an old laptop. Cut most of my print times by at least 25% while keeping tolerances and finish acceptable. Hope that's helpful to someone.
Yo thanks so much my brother and I are setting up our fab shop and this is just what we needed thanks for taking the time to share this with us
I don't have a better solution exactly. However I think I'll be trying lining the drawers with pegboard so i don't need to print that bit. Model for that and also add magnets to the bins likely to get set on project cars....heck the magnets might be enough for the toolbox or i may make a template to drill holes in the drawers for bin location, i simply dislike the material and print time for the grids.
Great video, found it while researching Gridfinity parts. I come from the 3d printer group and use it mostly for functional parts. Therefore I'm not using it often, but it's a godsend when I need it. Primarily for enclosures for electronics. Recently I designed a HEPA/active coal filter for a silencing box for my projector. Adapters for vacuums and wood working tools are common as well. Being able to design and print custom parts can make your life so much easier.
I think it's a good choice to get a proper and big 3D printer in your case. If you like the Gridfinity system you might also like the Honeycomb Wall which is a similar community driven standard just for walls. I wouldn't hang a heavy hammer drill on it, but some smaller tools might fit great. I had a peg board before, but the accessories were hard to get and very expensive. Like 30$ for some hooks and some plastic boxes. The Honeycomb Wall is easy to extend and its easy to make custom parts for it too. Really like it!
I've literally been considering buying a 3D printer lately for this exact reason. What I don't have is the time for the learning curve of modeling. If I can find all the right models to download for easy printing then I'm a lot more likely to spend the time actually printing what I need. I spend a lot of time in Harbor Freight staring at the organizer section and wondering if any of it would make my toolbox cleaner, more organized and hold more tools. This could be the answer. Thanks man! (first time viewer, I'll check out your other videos - I see you are from Idaho, I'm from Utah your neighbor to the south)
One of the other good tricks with smaller tools is designing pockets for embedded magnets. Put a pause in your gcode just before the pockets get capped, drop your magnets in, then resume the print.
The only issue with this is that I tend to have metal dust and shavings around from fabricating, so anything magnetic just turns into a huge mess 😅. Works great if you dont do metal fabrication though!
Nice work man 👍🏻👍🏻always so satisfying to watch tools getting their own place😂
Hey man, thanks a lot for your efforts. I do mostly use small tools and desk top equipment, but I really need to organize my bigger tools in my garage so I really appreciate your efforts to optimize the system for bigger tools. Thanks a lot man, your making my life a lot easier if nothing else.
very detailed and great information u have provide. thankyou very much. u are a good mechanical influencer. i really appreciate your efforts. Thank you very much for detailed explanation and templets
I have an eleagoo neptune plus 3. Got it for $250 usd and it can print a lot of different filaments. I mainly use rapid PLA. Prints bigger parts fast. 6 hours on ASA to about 2 hours because of print speed. About 1ft by 1ft by 15in print size.
Hey there. I’ve heard very good comments about the Neptune 3 plus. Can you point me to where I can buy used ones?
@antoniosoto801 I bought mine directly from elaagoo them selves. They had a sale going on for labor day I think.
Great video. There's another creator who came up with a similar idea called Alexandre Chappel, who I think GridFinity was based off of. I'm pretty sure it's a different grid size to GridFinity, but Chappel's a woodworker so a lot of his usecases for his own system is designed for bigger tools and whatnot. Worth a look into for inspiration
The difference is one is proprietary and the other is open source
Thanks for giving away all your models. I need to orgainze my toolbox...
Hey. GREAT video. You REALLY do a wonderful job for us guys who are builders, doers and makers in other mediums. You explain your reasons, thoughts and ideas well. I took the 3D printer leap a couple of months ago for the Shop and have been very happy with projects I've found on maker sites as well as creating and making my own specific needs things. Once I thoroughly learn Fusion 360... LOOK OUT!! 🤣
As a Avid 3d printer user I Have some good recommendations myself for good 3d printers.
For a budget I would go for the Ender 3 Pro rather than the Base 3, the little more money goes to a much better performance.
For a mid range (still cheap though) I strongly recommend the elegoo Neptune 3 pro, Its a little more expensive than the ender 3 pro But you get an insane amount more. You get a direct drive extruder (opens up more filament options), it has auto bed leveling so that's one less thing you have to do every few prints, and more features that make it the best beginner printer on the market right now for it price.
For a expensive one my two biggest recommendations are the prusha i3 printers for there really good reliability or bambulab which are equally as reliable and have a crapload of features.
Good suggestions, thank you for your comment!
The only reason I didn't include the prusa on my high end list is that for the price you don't necessarily get any additional features (still open format so will struggle with exotics, etc). The Prusa is basically the same feature set as the cheaper printers, but more reliable and more robust. It seems more targeted for a heavy user of 3D printing rather than a beginner (like a print farm). Whereas a beginner going to a closed format printer that can reliably print engineering plastics might be more alluring to any engineers in the audience who may overlook 3D printing entirely if the only material options are PLA and ABS. This does beg the question of resin printers, but that's a topic for another day, also not beginner friendly 😅
Honestly I can't believe how much I use my 3d printer. When I talk to people they just don't understand why or what you would print. I think I print something for myself or family a couple times per week. One cool thing you could work in to your prints is adding embedded neodymium magnets. How good would it be to pop off that tray of tools and stick it to your work area? I embed them in everything. The plastic layer protects surfaces and your items stay put. Nice job BTW I'll have to check out some of your stuff.
Thank you! The embedded magnets would be great, however my problem is theres so much grinder dust and metal shavings in my garage magnets are just a mess 😅 i try to avoid them.
@@BuildSomethingAuto makes sense
The magnets are a great idea! 👍
You literally just described my problem...I have the knick knacks but I also got the automotive tools...my workspace is a shit show...lol
Thanks for the hard work with SW been meaning to do the same!!
You are just like me, totally disorganised and messy. Tool boxes have trays that are too shallow for most tools to be seen and stood on end long sockets will not go in. Did you make a cage to stop 10mm sockets from escaping?😊
Nice video! I’m in the midst of doing the same thing for my kitchen, using Alexandre Chappel’s grid system on which Gridfinity was based. There’s real benefit to the whole idea of “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” There’s also an intangible benefit, which is that it’s just that much more of a pleasure to work in the space when it’s well organized.
By the way, just my opinion, but I think you could lose the second camera angle and save some time in the video editing. That whole off-axis camera gimmick is unnecessary and, to me, a little annoying.
7:55 Is your 3d printer made in the USA? What is it, and where can I get one?
it's not, but it's decent quality. I'm not actually aware of any made in the US. I have recommendations on my website, bottom of the page:
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
I've also used the 3d printer for multiple small parts fixes. I would say that CAD is necessary for that, since the best application for a 3d printer is to fix or improve something so specific, you can't find anything alike in the market.
Yeah, i definitely think CAD is the biggest barrier to entry. However I think pretty basic CAD can get you pretty far and isnt too hard to pick up! Atleast its a lot easier to find the motivation to learn it once you already have a 3D printer 😁
@@BuildSomethingAuto oh, absolutely agreed! When you have even a basic level, it improves the experience by leaps and bounds.
I hear good things about TinkerCAD for ease of use, but have never used it myself as I'm building out a 3DVR modeling rig using Plasticity, Blender, and the Quest 2 headset. Gonna be awesome! I'll be able to model things nano to cosmic and blatantly violate the laws of physics and good taste. ;)
I think this solution is amazing. I would like to same the same thing but with more custom bins. Never 3d printed before tho... I do mobile mechanic work, and my toolbox stays in the back of a box truck in the Texas heat. What type of filament do you recommend?
The easiest for temperature would be ABS. A little harder to print (get a heated bed) but better for a hot car.
The files and some printer recommendations are on my website if you want them:
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
For other bins you could check thingiverse or thangs
Also, for mobile mechanic stuff consider adding magnets to the bins to help hold things in place even better. Thats what the holes in the bottom of the bins are for, I just dont like magnets in my garage because they fill up with metal shavings 😅
PETG and ASA are also good choices for projects that need to tolerate higher temps, like inside a closed vehicle on a really hot day, or under the hood.
@@BuildSomethingAuto:: Also even a simple enclosure for your printer makes a huge difference when printing ABS and other high temp materials. I made them out of cheap 1/2" foam insulation panels taped together and cut a hole for a plexiglass viewport so I can see what's going on inside for my open frame Ender 3s and they work great.
Nowadays I'm using the Enders primarily as filament dryers. And if folks are having problems with their printers, a LOT of times it's because the various filaments are hygroscopic (they suck up and store moisture from the ambient air) with the result that the moisture turns to steam as it passes thru the hot end and causes all kinds of problems like surface defects and blobbing and parts being ripped off the bed, etc. Dry filament solves a lot of problems and definitely makes your life easier.
Great video! I can totally relate and thank you for sharing your designs for our bigger tools. My printer might arrive today, can't wait to assemble the kit! :)
I need to get into 3d printing.
I have separate small carry boxes, if i need wrenches, go get the wrenches box, or the rachet and socket box, never seen anyone do that, do you have a idea why? I carry them to the car, and i can put the tool away in the box again, and never have the need to do a pile
When i worked in a shop for somebody else, we had the same problem of doing a pile, your idea is great, that solves lots of problems 👌🙌
Very, very cool!
Can you upload the files to printables/thingiverse/thangs?
They're available here:
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
or here:
thangs.com/designer/BuildSomething
@@BuildSomethingAuto yay I didn't know they were on thangs. Anyway great job with the models can't wait to use them
Where do I find your model's
Theyre at either
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
Or
thangs.com
I just subscribed! I cant wait to see what you make.
I only have 3.5 printers and 1 full frame up project Jeep, 1 "just needs a motor" jeep, my daily driver jeep (also a project lol) and a suzuki samurai project lol.
All I need is a bigger driveway and Id probably have just as many 4x4's 🤣
You happen to of released the files anywhere?
Yup!
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
@@BuildSomethingAuto Much appreciated. Going to add that allen piece to my box
This grid thing is avesome. If you use allen keys often, it simply won't work, Wiha ergostar (butterfly) holder is the way to go, have a look and thank me later. I'm tempted to buy my first printer and the more videos I watch the less decided I am 😂I want to be able to print usable parts out of nylon. I use Shapr3D for modeling as I was struggling with Fusion and Solidworks. Thank you for your video.
Thanks for your comment! I have some suggestions on my website for printers if youre interested, the qidi will do nylon and they have a couple cheaper options (affiliate links)
www.buildautomedia.com/gridfinity
My only problem with that style of allen holder is that i find theyre often too tight, and you have to rotate all the other keys out of the way to get the one you want. My holder I find to be much quicker. But I havent tried the wiha one specifically
Hi, tried to get to your website but get an error
For some reason on certain browsers you have to use the "www".
Try:
www.BuildAutoMedia.com
Please let me know if that doesn't work.
Excellent content! Well done. Liked and subscribed and looking forward to watching you use that very cool Qidi printer with engineering grade materials, as I am on that path as well.
Thanks for making your models available. Will definitely be downloading and printing them. Can't speak for Zach, but I've been watching his videos for a long time and I'll bet he'd be thrilled with your application of his Gridfinity system. I'm currently building a 3D print farm I'm having a ball with it. It's great to have micro manufacturing and rapid prototyping capabilities for my R&D projects for my and my buddies' race cars and many other things.
Just a suggestion re modeling software for anyone interested; there's an application called Plasticity that's really intuitive and amazing. It's not free, but it is not expensive and it's excellent and fun to use. And, just to make people aware, there are many workflows for Blender that let you gear things directly toward precision hard surface modeling, as opposed to the organic stuff with which Blender's commonly associated.
I'm a motion graphics, interactive programmer, VR, webdev, video and audio production guy, in addition to all the other weird stuff I'm into, and a cool new feature of Plasticity is it's ability to live-link your models into Blender, which is a really interesting and useful workflow.
Anyway, great job! I've currently got 2 Bambu Labs P1Ps and a Creality K1 along with 5 Ender 3s and an Elegoo Saturn 2 rig for resin stuff, so far, and the newest printers are just friggin' amazing. I've built an enclosed print farm space in my Shop/Studio that'll eventually hold around 40 printers that I'm working to fill, bit by bit.
Gridfinity FTW!
nice job man
What kind of tool box is that?
I got it at costco almost 10 years ago, brand is "toolmaster", just some cheapo box. I originally thought the side cabinets would be pretty useful but frankly id rather just have more drawers for the space. If I were looking now Id probably buy a harbor freight box. Theres a lot of their tools I wouldnt buy, but toolboxes and jacks from there seem to work well.
Hey its not being cheap. Building vs buying? Its self reliance!!!
Try to put a predetermined number of tools away when you're done for the day. That way, even if you don't put them all away, it's still better than searching for ALL of them.
"i like good tools" also "all my tools are from the US" hah a good laugh"
very cool.
Great video. New subscriber
You're wasting steps designing it then printing it to check fit. Take a picture and design around that if your software allows you to use refrence images.
I often do that as well, but the problem is that a camera photo isn't isometric, so the dimensions further away from the lense don't match the dimensions up close to the lense. Photos within CAD work great for getting a rough estimation of a shape, but IMO you still need to measure by hand or print a test.
Granted, I'm sure it would have been good enough for this application.
If you have a trick to make the photo isometric I'd love to hear it, it'd save some time when tolerances are tighter. I try to avoid zooming and take the photo further away to minimize the effect, but it's still present.
@@BuildSomethingAuto If all your measurements are made on a single plane perpendicular to the camera's view ray, they should transfer isometricly. Failing that, you can reduce perspective effects by keeping the camera far away (as you're doing) and keeping the measurements close to the optic center of the image (this is almost always the actual image center, but could be different if the camera is built with its lens not centered over the sensor.)
Agreed.
Some of Lincoln's welders are made in China (and they're still 😗👌 quality)
Good point! Although I over generalized in the video, I think the important thing to remember is that China will build things to your spec. If you spec high quality, and implement high QC standards, it can be built well even coming from China. The problem is that often things are made there for the opposite reason - because corners and costs can be cut. Being made in China doesn't mean it can't be high quality, it just means it isn't necessarily so.
I've heard stories that 2 different products in China could be built on the same production line by the same people, but when the lower QC standard companies products come onto the line they roll the brand new, tight, nice production equipment off the line, and roll in the old clapped out loose tolerance equipment, since they know they aren't hitting as tight of tolerances anyways and there's no need to wear out their nice equipment. Not sure if that's true or not, but I worked in manufacturing for a time and I can absolutely see that being the case 😅.
Kaizen foam is just foam, kaizen is a Japanese organisation idea where every item has its own location, like 5s and so on.
Kaizen foam is foam used for kaizen 😉. The reason I use that term is because when you search for it thats what comes up immediately.
The "lean" idea is that everything has its place and you can immediately visually tell if things are missing which can be accomplished by outlining each tool as a cutout in the foam, similar to a "shadow board". This is why I said it takes so much space because stacking tools would be against this visual principle and so would putting multiple things in a single bin.
Great for production, bad for space.
Mazda Miata
Yup! It's my brothers, and now it's a turbo miata 😅. Here's the first video on it if you're interested, more coming soon.
th-cam.com/video/uRFMlolisP0/w-d-xo.html