Why a low strip of four
The front row of a drawer is the part you see without pulling the drawer all the way out, and it is where the parts used most often belong. Four separate 1x1 bins do the job, but they slide apart when one is lifted and they leave three double walls between the pockets. One 4x1 strip has single 1.2 mm dividers, so each pocket is a little wider, about 40.2 by 38.3 mm, and the strip comes out in one piece when you want all four sizes of a part on the bench. At 28 mm high the pockets are 22 mm deep inside, shallow enough to pick a single washer from the floor.
What to measure
Check two things. First the printer: the strip is 167.5 mm long, so it needs a bed of 180 mm or more along one axis, or a diagonal placement on a smaller bed. Second the contents: 22 mm of depth suits washers, nuts, fuses, cable lugs and short screws, but screws longer than about 40 mm lie across the pocket and jam. For those, set the compartments across to 2, which gives two trays about 81.6 mm long on the same footprint, or raise the height by one or two 7 mm steps.
Clearance, wall and material
The clearance to the grid is 0.5 mm. The outer wall is 1.6 mm and the three dividers are 1.2 mm; the floor above the feet is 1.2 mm. A long low bin is stiff along its length because the dividers tie the two long walls together every 41 mm, so the thicker outer wall is there for the rim, which is what fingers and other bins knock against. The strip stands on four plain square feet, each 35.6 mm, and has no stacking lip. PLA is suitable; in a light colour, small dark parts are easier to find.
Printing
Print with the feet down and the long side along the axis on which your printer moves the nozzle and not the bed, if it has one, to keep the long walls free of ripples. The floor bridges three 6.4 mm channels between the feet without supports. A long part with a small contact area, four feet only, can lift at the ends, so make sure the first layer of all four feet is well pressed down before leaving the print. It takes about two hours at 0.2 mm layers.
Outline drawing
Top view, to scale. Four cells of the 42 mm grid, less 0.5 mm clearance.
Parameters the generator will use
| Setting | Link parameter | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Model | model | grid_bin |
| Grid cells across (X) | units_x | 4 |
| Grid cells deep (Y) | units_y | 1 |
| Total height (Z) | height | 28 |
| Outer wall thickness | wall | 1.6 |
| Floor thickness above the feet | floor | 1.2 |
| Compartments across (X) | cols | 4 |
| Compartments deep (Y) | rows | 1 |
| Divider thickness | divider | 1.2 |
| Clearance to the grid | fit_clearance | 0.5 |
| Foot height | foot_height | 4.75 |
| Foot inset | foot_inset | 2.95 |
All lengths are in millimetres. Outer size from these values: 167.5 x 41.5 x 28 mm.
Open the generator with these values
This model needs the $7 licence key: one payment, one key, and it opens all five paid models. Get a licence key on Gumroad ($7)
The bin on a 42 mm base grid needs a licence key: without one the generator shows the model locked, lists the values from this link and fills them in as soon as you unlock. The fitted drawer organiser bin is the free model and downloads with no key.