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Comment by tetha | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm a bit of a downer there, but I looked at the overall effort and time investment of making Gridfinity and rather got myself a cutting board and glue to recycle old cardboard.

Don't get me wrong, Gridfinity looks amazing. But, cutting a few cardboard base plates from old shipping boxes into place and putting together little stands for a metronome, tuner and a few other small things, as well as a bunch of boxes for plecs and other small stuff took like half an hour to an hour.

And I could reuse some trash shipping boxes I had around here.

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Along these lines, foam core board is a super common and effective material for making drawer organizers and little boxes. It's very cheap and holds together surprisingly well with hot glue or super glue. Adam Savage is a huge fan of it and he's tried everything.

Adam Savage has done everything, but he's still a little bit behind on practical 3D printing. I think as of 2~ years ago he said he still wasn't 'up' on his CAD programs.

He did get a new Nylon FDM machine and a few other things, but he isn't so much a software design person. Mr. Savage has a huge bias towards using their hands to solve their problems and I wouldn't take his work style as a referendum on the utility of these other tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWXcnVTY3pk

Foam Core is still cool tho

I needed to organize a bunch of tools and other miscellaneous items in a closet. I tried printing a few Gridfinity items, but quickly realized that it wasn't worth the time, effort and filament + electricity costs. I ended up going to the dollar store and buying a bunch of plastic containers and some labels, and managed to get everything organized in an hour and for under $10.

I think Gridfinity is more geared toward people looking for a hobby than a practical storage solution. Which it totally fine - people are definitely creating some cool stuff with Gridfinity - but probably good to decide up front which group you fall into.

You'd be surprised how many ways there are to make storage containers. Gridfinity is one of them.

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