Side Projects
Gridfinity Is Easy. Finding the Drawers Is the Hard Part
- Gridfinity is a free, open 3D-printed storage system built on a 42mm grid. Bins drop into baseplates and lift back out.
- Printing the parts is the easy bit. The hard bit is a cabinet whose drawers fit the grid without wasting half the space.
- The first cabinet I looked at seriously was too small and too expensive at around $289, so it's out.
- Still shopping. This is the checklist I'm shopping with.
My 3D printing folder has a whole section called Storage, and inside it is a little block of GridfinityA free, open 3D-printed storage system on a 42mm grid. Bins drop into printed baseplates and lift back out, and anybody's bins fit anybody's plates. baseplates: 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 6x6, and one 42mm plate with a half row on the end. The bins are the easy part. You can print them all day.
What I don't have is somewhere to put them. That's turned out to be the actual project.
What Gridfinity is
Gridfinity is a modular storage system designed by Zack Freedman in 2022 and released for anyone to print. The whole thing hangs on two numbers:
- 42mm. Every bin is a multiple of 42 x 42mm across the base.
- 7mm. Heights go up in 7mm units, so a "3U" bin is 21mm tall.
You print a baseplate, a flat grid of 42mm pockets, and cut or tile it to fill a drawer. Bins have a stepped foot that drops into those pockets. They sit still when the drawer slams, and they lift straight out when you want them. Because the grid is a standard, bins from anybody's design fit everybody's baseplate. There are thousands of them.
Tip
Measure a drawer's inside width and depth, divide each by 42, and round down. That's how many grid units fit. What's left over is dead space, and the goal is to keep it small.
Why the cabinet is the hard part
A drawer that's 5 units wide plus 30mm is a drawer where you print a filler strip and live with it. A drawer that's 4.9 units wide is a drawer where you lose a whole column. The grid is unforgiving, and furniture doesn't come in multiples of 42.
The other problem is height. Tall bins are great in a deep drawer. In a shallow one, you're stuck with 2U or 3U bins, which is perfect for screws and SD cards and useless for anything bigger.
The one I ruled out
The first cabinet I looked at seriously was a Bisley 10-drawer MultiDrawer. It's a lovely steel cabinet and it looks the part. But the drawers were too small for the layouts I had in mind, and at around $289 it was too much money for too little grid. So it's out.
What I'm shopping for
Here's the checklist I'm holding the next options to:
| Need | Why |
|---|---|
| Inside dimensions close to a multiple of 42mm | Less filler, less dead space |
| At least a few deeper drawers | Room for 6U+ bins and odd-shaped stuff |
| Full-extension slides | So the back row isn't a black hole |
| A price that makes sense per grid unit | The bins are nearly free; the box shouldn't cost a fortune |
The last row is the one I keep coming back to. The whole appeal of Gridfinity is that the storage itself costs a few cents of filament. Paying hundreds for the drawers kind of misses the point.
Why I care this much about a grid
Apparently I'm just like this. I file my bookmarks into four-letter folders and my movies into A-Z buckets. And I have a soft spot for Vignelli's grids on paper. A drawer where every screw has a 42mm home is the same itch, scratched with plastic.
The hunt continues. Once I find the cabinet, I'll print the plates to fit and show what went where.