An OpenSCAD generator for customizable, stackable and connectable boxes for 3D-printing
The script can generate boxes and connectors. The connectors are placed below and at the borders of each box and hold boxes together.
Every box is made up from a grid of square base units. Every base unit has one cutout in the bottom for a connector on the outside of the box. The size of each box is given as number of base units along the x and y axis.
Too complicated? Here's an example:
base unit size: 40mm
width of the box: 3 (120mm)
depth of the box: 2 (80mm)
The box will have 3 connector cutouts on the long side and two on the short one
Boxes can have an inset bottom which overlaps the connector bar. When matching the inset to the wall thickness, the boxes become stackable. See the comments in the script parameters for more details.
Boxes can have a pocket for inserting labels. Deactivate the label pocket by setting
label_max_width = 0;
The pocket is always placed on the wall parallel to and farthest away from the x axis. If you want it on another wall, just switch the x and y dimensions of the box.
Download the script, open in OpenSCAD, and run the script. This will create a set of boxes based on a 40mm base size with connector bars.
Feel free to experiment with the parameters in the top sections (marked by Start Editing and Stop Editing comments).
Next, comment out the create_demo_box_set command and un-comment the create_fitting_test line. Set the simplify parameter back to false. This will generate one connector bar and two half boxes without walls. These can be used to print and check how well the connectors fit the cutouts in the boxes.
Experiment with the parameters for the box and connector geometry, if you want.
When you are satisfied with the geometry and want to start creating boxes, create one or more boxes and/or connectors, export to STL and print.
Feel free to examine the samples in the run() module to see how it all works.
For printing, the boxes should have rounded corners and rounded connectors. However, displaying the model with all this rounding slows down generation and responsiveness of the 3D viewer.
Therefore the rounding can be switched off by setting the simplify parameter to true.
The boxes have grooves at the bottom, along the outlines of each square base unit, and with the width of the bar_overlap parameter. If the bar overlap is slightly larger then the wall_thickness, it will be possible to stack the boxes. Because of the grooves, even larger boxes can be stacked on top of multiple smaller ones.
Example:
wall_thickness = 2
bar_overlap = 2.2
bar_width = 4.4
Label pocket sizes are configured via parameters in the script. See the comments for more information.
The max_label_width parameter controls how wide the label will be. If the box width exceeds the label_max_width value, the label will label_max_width wide and centered. If the box is smaller, the label will take up the complete space.