An open-source library of 3d printable parts for making low-cost boxes, trays, and bins. You can also view pictures and download the source from the BoxKit page on Prusa Printers.
3d printing can be a great way to make small bins and boxes, but it's not always possible or economical for larger items.
BoxKit enables the easy creation of these types of bins using thin sheet goods such as acrylic, plywood, or MDF panels, with small, cheap, 3d printed parts for the corners. The corners can be secured in place with CA glue.
This is a quick, cheap, and efficient way of creating all sorts of small parts bins. The parts are designed to print with no supports.
I would like to make a video explaining and demonstrating some of the features and process. Coming soon, I hope!
Quickly print a set of corners that will allow you to assemble a box of any size.
Choose a simple tray or a box with a hinged lid. Optional features include lid latches, magnets, independent hinges, and other configurable options, as detailed below.
Parameters such as the thickness of the material, side length, height, hinge configuration, and many other configuration options are available.
Modify the parameters using the OpenSCAD program.
No coding is required for changing parameters due to the Customizer, which allows configuration through a friendly interface.
Steps to create a box include:
- sourcing materials
- configuring and printing parts
- cutting panels to size
- assembling
For me, a large part of the motivation for this project is that I had a lot of the freely-acquired clear acrylic that was bound for the trash before I got it.
I can frequently find acrylic sheet scraps for free from a local plastics supplier that throws out smaller offcuts in a bin next to their dumpster. You can probably find something like this too!
I also think it could be a good use of smaller scrap offcuts of thin sheet goods like MDF or plywood that you may have lying around the shop, or are able to reclaim for free from somewhere.
I can often find such materials very cheaply at a local used building materials yard, such as a Habitat ReStore, or similar.
I encourage you to use reclaimed materials where possible! Reducing waste and making something useful out of "trash" is important, and has value that goes beyond a simple monetary calculation, though it can also be very economical.
All dimensions are in mm.
Two of the most important parameters are:
stock thickness, which represents the thickness of the material that you are usingperimeters, which is used — along withextrusion width— to determine the thickness of the plastic walls that make up the structure of plastic part.
The wall thickness of the plastic is determined by the number of perimeters set in the configuration, multiplied by the extrusion width. I have been pleasantly surprised by the strength and suitability of using only two perimeters, but I have experimented with both two (2p) and three (3p) perimeter configurations. 3p is good for larger boxes and trays, but 2p is quite good too and uses only about 60% of the plastic that 3p does.
In my testing on a 3mm panel, a clearance of -.1 works well with 2p panels, while a clearance of .1 works well with 3p panels.
In OpenSCAD, you can choose from many options in the "print parts" selection. Each option displays certain parts that are generally appropriate to print together. However, you can use features of your slicer, such as "Split to parts" or "Split to objects", as in Prusa Slicer, to easily isolate a certain part and print just that, if desired.
My parts are printed with PETG:
- white is MatterHackers Build series
- black is Prusament Galaxy Black
With PETG, I have personally found it essential to slow down the first-layer speed to get good adhesion and a clean first layer. I could not get consistent results using the default Prusa Slicer profiles. I am using a 10mm/s First layer speed, and that is working well for me.
When making a box or tray, I like to have the bottom of the box completely inset inside the walls of the box. I will expand on this process later, but for now, it is an exercise for the reader. Stay safe — don't make any cuts that you're not comfortable with. I'm sure you'll figure it out. ;)
I like to get everything lined up and test fit before starting the gluing process, then go around and glue a corner at a time, top corners first. Then inserting the bottom panel and gluing on the bottom corners after the top is set up. Some gentle clamping may help too, depending on the size of everything.
Since the bottom corners are just flat in the base configuration, it can be a little tricky to keep them on properly. See the "ledge height" option in the "Bottom Corners" customizer section for another option that holds the sidewalls better.
For gluing, I have used both medium or thick 2P-10 CA glue and they both work well. Medium can be quite runny and you have to be careful to not let it drip, but it's slightly easier for me to work with than the thick. I try to apply a small amount to the cavity of the part and then press in the panel. Thick tends to have more squeeze-out and it's harder for me to control the application amount.
Watch out, as some plastics can be discolored by CA glue activators.
The OpenSCAD Customizer can be used to drive most changes that I expect you will need. Let me know if there is anything missing!
Basic steps to get started are as follows:
- Install the OpenSCAD program.
- Install the libraries as detailed in the following links: Round Anything and BOSL.
- Download the code for this project from GitHub — see the link on the top right of the project page.
- Open BoxKit.scad, and start exploring the Customizer options. Don't be afraid to edit the values in the code, too!
- Once you have something you want to try, you must first Render the part, and then Export as STL. Both of these are in the application menus, and available as icons in the interface.
Note: the OpenSCAD Customizer does not allow subdivisions of numbers that started out as integers, for instance, if a value started out as "3", the Customizer does not allow you to input 3.1. You can deal with this by editing the code, though I've tried to work around the issue for some cases.
Four bottom corners and four top corners that are assembled to create a simple tray or lidless box.
Just like a tray, but with a hinged lid. Two of the top corners are replaced with hinge parts. Additionally, two hinges are added for back of the lid, and two covers for the front of the lid.
The hinges are designed to open to a nice stop point, so the lid opens to about 30º past 90º.
The hinge type can be configured as:
A pinned hinge, using a piece of filament as the pin. This is a very simple way to create a nicely operating hinge that is less finicky than the "ball" hinge. This is my preference.
A snap-fit half-ball indentation that provides a convenient way to attach two hinge pieces. I have had some success with the ball hinge, but I find it to be more sensitive to small configuration changes. It can be hard to assemble if the tolerances are too tight, and can damage the hinge slightly during assembly. However, if tolerances are too loose, the hinge does not provide much friction and becomes floppy. Due to this, I personally prefer the filament hinge. Also, the ball hinge requires more rendering time in OpenSCAD.
In this simple design, there is a gap between the top of the box sides and the
bottom of the lid. This is suitable for many purposes. However, if a
more-refined and fully-enclosed box is desired, you can use an edge_cap piece
to fully cover the top edges of the box.
There is also an edge cap tall option that is explained in the Customizer.
A Lid Latch can be added to create a securely closing lid. Due to the printing orientation, the layers of the lid can catch when closing, so this part should be printed with finer layer height settings than other parts, like .1mm.
Some light filing/sanding also helps to get the latch to close smoothly. I am open to other design ideas that could improve this situation, I have a couple ideas but haven't had time to implement and test them yet.
The latch is an add-on to the edge cap part, so it can be printed on top of an edge cap of variable width, allowing you to create a more enclosed box.
Dividers can be added by printing the three-way and four-way corner parts.
Boxes are easily created by building a hinge into the top corner piece, but a "flat" hinge piece is also available to retrofit lids to existing trays.
Magnets can be embedded in the rear parts of a box. In a brief test using four 8mm diameter, 1mm thick magnets such as these, a small box was able to hold some small items and remain stuck to the side of my fridge, but it was not particularly strong with such small magnets. Perhaps doubling the magnets or using a larger magnet would work well. Note that you may need to increase the wall-thickness by increasing the number of perimeters if you want your magnet to be fully-embedded.
Modify and contribute improvements, new ideas, and new features!
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Stackability
I would be interested in a good implementation of stackable boxes of the same size. I haven't found a great way to implement this in an elegant, printable way. One idea would be to have a separately-printed disc or triangle that glues into a cavity that is printed into the bottom of the bottom-corner part. But I don't find extra assembly steps to be very elegant or worthwhile. I experimented with an "interlock" feature that is in the code behind a feature flag, but I have not tried to print it and am skeptical of it anyway.
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Shelf Slot
Okay, so it's not exactly box related, but this would be pretty easy and might be a nice way to mount panels as shelves. I have this partially implemented (
back_plate()), just haven't been able to finish and test it yet. -
Automate Exports
I'd love to be able to change some parameters and run a command-line script that would export all the part types, named by convention. This should be doable.
- some part layouts do not behave properly when exaggerated dimensions are used. I think in normal usage this shuold be ok, but let me know otherwise.