I’m looking to make something from tab and slot pieces, but my brain is not wrapping around it well.
Looking at it from the side, the top piece protrudes backwards from the rest of the project. This piece will be 150mm wide by 45mm deep, with the tabs on one side only, to fit into the long piece.
The long piece is 110mm ‘tall’, 150mm wide, tabs on top and bottom of the 150mm edges. Obviously one of those edges connects to the 150mm piece described above. these 2 pieces make a ‘hanger’ for a tray that would be160mm x 180mm and 50mm deep. Ideally the 160mm side could somehow connect by tabs to the ‘hanger’? or I could glue it.
The purpose of the project is to create a bottle holder/hanger for ink bottles for UV printing. I have a ‘hot swap’ kit from the seller to change from hard to soft inks without draining the entire system, but no place to keep the bottles…
Any thoughts / help would be appreciated. Just describing it on the page here makes my brain hurt a little…
My brain is also starting to ache trying to understand exactly what you need, but the problem lies in the translation.
My last project was a support base for a WiFi repeater that is fixed through the hole for the plug. In reality, it just hangs on the plug.
I created the tabs myself and hardly needed any glue.
I believe you are familiar with online pages where you can input the dimensions of numerous creations and download the created file for free.
If you are not familiar, boxes.py is one that I use frequently.
I don’t know if I helped, but the truth is that I didn’t quite understand the question either.
Very familiar with the boxes site, and use it often…but it does not contain anything similar to what i’m looking for, except I suppose I can make the tray part there quite easily…
I also have no idea how (in what ways) or what forces will be exerted on the shelf.
The design of the tabs and slots has to take this into account to be functional. But the slots will have to be placed on the parts that will be subjected to vertical forces and the tabs on those that will be subjected to horizontal forces. (I have some doubts that I haven’t been clear enough about, but…)
the plastic bottles themselves are very light weight. Each can hold about half a liter, but I only run them with maybe 200ml. The material I’ll use will be laser cut 6mm plywood, and assembly will be glued. Other than some vibration when the printer is running, weight is the primary physical force (gravity, that is)… The pins that will hold this onto the printer will be metal - chicago screw/posts.
If I am seeing this correctly, could you extend a few of the tabs from the box to allow them to protrude through the hanger? Alternate lengths, not everyone, and cut matching holes/slots in the hanger piece. If there is room behind the hanger, one could use a dowel or pin to ensure holding along with glue.
With this additional information I made a file for you. The sides angle to the back providing more tabs and with that, more glue surface as well as more torque resistance. The slots and tabs are for 6mm and you will need to adjust them for the actual measured thickenss of your material and take kerf into account. With 6mm material there should be enough strength in the glue joints, but I would add some pin nails for extra strength. Ink Box.lbrn2 (72.3 KB)
Wow. Thank you. Did you start with boxes.py and edit from there? in any case, all but one side fits on a piece of material I have laying around here - so I’m cutting it out now!
Now select everything and ungroup a couple times until everything is ungrouped. With everything still selected, go to Tools Menu> Resize Slots in Selection. Choose Tab Height, use these settings and click apply, then change to Slot Width and click ok.
In the pic you can see the tabs on the angled corners don’t get adjusted. This can be fixed with the node editor, but in this instance I would probably just sand the 1mm off after assembly.
I messed something up. the bottom won’t line up with the holes in the back but the front fits fine…? The front fits on either end of the back, so I did something wrong to the back. So glad I have lots of scraps of this wood!
Also I was hoping for a slightly snugger fit. do I reduce the tolerance?
Without knowing how it 's not fitting I can’t advise. Upload the file and I will look at it and advise. I won’t have time until late tonight or tomorrow to look at it though.
You can either adjust the slot and tab size or use the Kerf Offset function.
I share an explanation for what the ‘Tolerance’ control does:
Tolerance specifies an added amount of padding to Old Material Thickness — slots or tabs that are within the range of Old Material Thickness plus or minus Tolerance will be identified by the resizer.
Drop a few illustrations of what you describe above. I, too, am finding it difficult to envision your project.
