What in the world could an accessory for an obsolete audio medium possibly have to do with keeping all your unruly bits and pieces in order? First of all, we’re not sure the CD is quite dead yet; we’ve got about a thousand of them packed away somewhere, and we’re pretty sure they’ll be back in style again one of these days. Until then, though, the lowly CD rack might be just what you need to get your shop under control.
As [Chris Borge] relates the story, he stumbled over this CD rack at a thrift sale and quickly realized its potential. All it took was some quick design work and a bit of 3D printing. Okay, a lot of 3D printing, including some large, flat expanses for the drawer bottoms, which can be a problem to print reliably. His solution was simple but clever: pause the print and insert a piece of stiff card stock to act as the drawer bottom before continuing to print the sides. This worked well but presented an adhesion problem later when he tried to print some drawer dividers, so those were printed as a separate job and inserted later.
Sadly, [Chris] notes that the CD format is not quite Gridfinity compatible, but that’s not a deal breaker. He also doesn’t provide any build files, but none are really necessary. Once you’ve got the basic footprint, what you do with your drawers is largely dependent on what you’ve got to store. The video below has a lot of ideas for what’s possible, but honestly, we’re looking at all those little parts assortment kits from Bojack and Hilitchi piled up in a drawer and just dreaming about the possibilities here. Add a voice-activated, LED inventory locator, and you’d really have something. Off to the thrift store!
dude?! really?! obsolete…dead…eclipsed….
let me tell you CDs is as far as I got and as far as I will go techwise – screw streaming – it’s a Biggus Corous corp daa suck machine.
I’m staying on CDs (and DVDs) from ‘thrift’ stores and ebay and I *love* it
Biggus Techus has missed that many people are fine with old tech. it is —sufficient — and also cheap dollarwise and no data-suck-out-nonsense either
I’m all digital using USB and phone now but only because I ripped all my existing CDs – no streaming necessary
If they want obsolete, we can give them obsolete.
https://youtu.be/uEISYaWgCRg
Nothing stops you from printing directly on a CD case, giving you a nice flat base to start with and less material needed, as you only need to print the dividers. Can’t print all the way up to the edges, but I don’t think that would be a huge issue.
That’s a fun idea. Would it adhere? Probably.
Treat the printing surface to make it adhere better?
Given how much trouble it would be to actually set the printing parameters to that, I would probably just CAD the part to fit in the case and use a bit of glue. Of course, then you have to find more than just the rack, which sounds like a possibility PITA these days, especially since most people still using CD’s either long since ditched the cases or are not likely looking to get rid of them. I do regularly still see the racks at thrift stores or in other giveaway/super cheap offerings though so it’s not such a stretch to repurpose that part.
My philosophy regarding all the “stuff” I have is that it is a “solution looking for a problem to solve”. Obsolescence or repurposed. I’ll be the judge of that. BTW, I still use CDs. Lots of them.
Is that a Micronta multimeter in the right side on the shelf? I got an identical one in the 90-s in Hungary from the USA… :-) It still works.
I had just this idea like a month ago lol. Even put a post “will take CD racks” on the city’s trash exchange group.