Iterating on side-hanging desktop tray
Still working on the bed-desk for my daughter. Her regular desk is always full of stuff. I made a rule that this new one should always be clean. Having said that, it seems to make sense to keep some things like pens close to it. So I'm working on a side-hanging tray.
With my first iteration, I made some mistakes that start to become familiar. My focus is on the utility and then once I try to print it, it ends up too complicated and super hard to print. I tried printing it, but the 'organic support' failed, leaving no real chance of supporting the upper edge with the holes. So I stopped the print.
The 2nd iteration my focus was on printability. It consists of two parts. Each part has a nice flat surface to print with no support required. Although there is a small overhang for a ridge I thought that might help with 'hugging' the desk. I guess it's just a left-over from the previous design.
The picture of the top of the post is from this version.
A nice thing about this design is that it's easy to swap out the basket. The replaced basket can then still be used by itself on a regular desk.
For unknown reasons I made the outer edge super thin. Also the basket is missing segments and I forgot to round out the outer corners. While it looks decent and works, it didn't feel robust enough.
I really love that 3D printing allows for this quick iterative process. Print, test, learn, update and print again. So here is the third iteration.
It should be much stronger and better suited at holding pens and things like that for drawing. And here is the real thing:
You can print it yourself over here.