Maker's Tray

Maker's Tray

While assembling my Original Prusa i3 Mk 2 kit (a couple of years ago), I ran into a common mishap. I laid out all the parts and fasteners for the sub assembling I was working on my work table. When I got up from my chair, my knee hit the bottom of the table and all the small parts went flying. After crawling around on the carpet with a flashlight for 10 minutes, I managed to locate every one of the errant nuts and bolts. That's when I started thinking about how to keep this from happening again.

Which lead to the "Maker's Tray"

It's a very simple, but elegant print. (photo 01)

Turn it upside down. (photo 02)

Run blue painters tape from side to side perpendicular to the center rib. (photo 03)

Cover the whole bottom. (photo 04)

Turn upright and trim the excess tape off with a knife. (photo 05-06)

Don't forget to trim the notches out as well. (photo 07)

Now you can layout your nuts, bolts and other small parts without fear of losing them. You can move the tray from place to place and everything stays put. The paints tape won't leave of residue on the parts and it works with plastic parts as well as metal (no magnets needed). (photo 08-09)

For those who use pegboard in your work space, there's more. (photo 10)

The pegboard holder will keep your trays off your work table and always available when you start to disassemble a project and want to keep the small parts together and in the order you removed them. (photo 11-13)

This was designed for 1 inch pegboard common in the US. However I think it will fit 25mm pegboard in Europe the rest of the world, but I have no way of testing, so try it and modified the file to make it fit.

One tray and one pegboard holder will fit together on the MK2.5 build plate. Or you can fit 2 trays without a skirt.

If you work with small parts, print, and tape several trays and have them on hand for your next project. I think you'll find them very useful.

Print instructions

Maker-tray is simple PLA print
50% infill
no supports

Peg-board-holder
PLA 50% infill
supports required for tabs on back

2 trays will fit on MK 2.5 bed with no skirt
1 tray plus pegboard will fit on MK 2.5 bed