So this seams to be the new big thing in organization.
Anyone currently using Gridfinity?
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Paging @KalebCole You should come visit 5010 @IndySam and check our setup out. Kaleb can likely post a bunch of links and pics.
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We’ve been using a gridfinity plate designed to fit in a Milwaukee Packout drawer for part organization at competitions. We didn’t add the magnets, but it has worked out pretty well for us.
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Anyone willing to take pictures of their setup?
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The concept is great, but the 42mm x 42mm size ( about 1 5/8 inches square) is small. For our electrical cart, we ended up doing something similar with a 2in x 2in size and removable bins in 2x2, 2x4, 4x4, 2x6 and 4x6 sizes. Based roughly on Alexandre Chappel’s system, which is what Gridfinity is based on. (I don’t know what Alexandre’s dimensions were.)
Here are a couple of links to our public Gridfinity OnShape CAD.
Gridfinity Generator
Gridfinity Main Toolbox
Gridfinity EndMill holders
The colors are based on this system.
Couldn’t find a finished picture, but this is a preview.
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We have started using a Gridfinity based organization system for our toolbox and our HDX 17 parts containers (we also standardized on these instead of having a giant mish mash). It was a project spearheaded by one of our mentors over the summer to go along with the first crate we are making for our Super Pit design.
I love and use Gridfinity for my personal stuff at home but never thought about using it for FRC. For our team, we store things like screws and bearings in those snap-top organizers (I believe the HDX ones), but still have tons of things like gears and electrical components that might go really well in a customized Gridfinity. My two main concerns for using it are: 1. Lack of locking lids (we don’t want our parts getting mixed on the way to competition, even in a drawer) and 2. Initial cost and print time (having to print everything vs. buying, especially for the initial setup, would take lots of filament and printer time) That being said, I do think that more teams should look into using this given all of its amazing advantages like easily being able to make custom bins, there being tons of existing modules online, when you need only a few parts not having to grab an extra ten pounds of unneeded things, and much more.
We use Gridfinity for both our CNC tooling cabinet and increasingly for our main pit tool box. We lean on a variety of custom containers (which is easy to work with given a generator) and find it’s a decent training project for new designers.
Here’s the top of our CNC cabinet. We color code boxes for material types (white - polycarb, brown - wood, grey - aluminum) which helps avoid tooling mistakes.
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I use Gridfinity for storage in my shop at home. I love it.
Credit where it’s due, Zack Freedman is the original creator of this open source system. He’s a Youtube creator. Here’s his profile on Thangs.
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Do you have a design for inserts into the HDX containers? Would be very interested in this.
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Yeah @Britt is the mentor who did the organization, they would be more than willing to share.
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We find that our fastener boxes keep the same layout for years at a time so there wasnt much of a point to making plate inserts for the modularity gridfinity brings. instead all of the bins that go into the HDX case just have gridfinity on the bottom of them so when they are taken out of the box they can be locked into something that will stop them from getting knocked over/onto the floor. Our design could definitely be done better but we are only going to make 1x6 plates to screw into tables anyways so there was no point for us to make sure the gridfinity pattern was done efficiently because its only keeping it locked onto the table when its out of the HDX box (typically only during long assembly weekends anyways).
If you take anything from the CAD, take the HDX case model, I couldn’t find anything accurate enough so I made my own. Each of our cases has different amounts of warp so a tight fit Bin in some spots were a loose fit in others.
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Thank you! I’ve been dreaming of a system like this for a while that works with the 100+ HDX bins we have. Much appreciated!
-Mike
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I have been converting our teams and my personal organization to Gridfinity for the past couple months. I’ve found there are two main ways to implement Gridfinity, each with their pros and cons.
- Shadowbox Style - Every tool has it’s own cutout/shadowbox. This creates very clean and aesthetic pictures like the ones from my personal usage. I prefer this method as I subscribe to the belief “Every tool has it’s place and every tool in it’s place”. Though it does have drawbacks of taking significantly more time to setup as you have to design every bin for the parts going in and they can sometimes require more space than empty cups.
- Cup Style - This is where you do empty bins that store each item. Typically requires labels or coloring to identify what goes where. Since you can generate different sized cups, this becomes very easy to do with minimal inputs. I prefer this when there are lot’s of small bits and bobs, such as hardware or pens and pencils.
Personal Usage
My personal home toolbox is being outfitted with Gridfinity. The color scheme for this is Blue is SAE, Red is Metric and Black is for everything else. Everything is printed on an Ender 3S1 without doing filament swaps. The numbering is engraved, then using a 1ml Oral Syringe, 25G Applicator Tip and White Nail Polish, I fill the engraving. It is a tedious task, but well worth the effort especially if you don’t have a fancy multi material unit. I also think the results are well worth the effort. (Please ignore messy desk)
5010 Usage
In our team toolbox, we have not only implemented Gridfinity but also a color coding system for matching tools to hardware. We have actually powder coated our tools to match the slots they go in and the labels on our hardware boxes will use the same coloring system.
This was previously posted by @BlueEpiphone but ill post it again here.
Friend’s Teams Gridfinity Start
This has a mixture of the cup style and shadowbox style.
5010 Open Source Libraries
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[GRID] 5010 - Gridfinity Generator - This is the base of all the Gridfinity our team does, everything is derived from these few base models. All of the models are configurable using the units defined by the Gridfinity Wiki. All of the bins use 6mm x 2mm Round Magnets that are able to be press fit in. We actually haven’t seen much of a need for them yet, as filling a drawer and having the grid in place holds everything pretty well, but incase we wanted to have them hold down more to the drawers better to have them be ready. This also contains the Gridfinity Ruler which is designed to measure in horizontal and vertical units to make estimating tool sizes or figuring out max heights for drawers much easier
This can be printed with the text in a different color using any 3D printer by just doing a filament swap at the layer when the top part starts
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[MTG] 5010 - Main Toolbox Gridfinity - This is all of the Gridfinity we currently have modeled for our toolbox.
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[SG] 5010 - Shop Gridfinity - This is the Gridfinity for everything else in our shop, fairly sparse at the moment, but will eventually encompass all of the tooling storage for our CNC’s, Lathes and Mill.
PS: For any teams attending events in Mishawaka or Kokomo, feel free to swing by 5010’s Pit
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We started some FTC teams this year and used the drawer Packout boxes. We printed these Gridinity inserts for the drawers and they worked out well
Multiples of 42x42 
Feel free to download any of the tool trays. They are all posted on Makerworld:
https://makerworld.com/en/@AcesHighX1
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