Modulex-Compatible Drawer System

This is a set of replacement parts which are compatible with the original vintage parts drawer organizers from Modulex/Lego.  The housings have cutouts on the top and bottom for interlocking together with all three types of vintage housings which I know of - footless, stripe foot, and round foot.  They also have indentations for felt to keep the plastic prints from scratching up the original cardboard-based drawer boxes, if you're using new parts with old.

Materials/Methods:

For the housings, I used Hatchbox light orange PLA Pro for the orange ones (which was a really close color match to the original orange color) and eSUN Gray PLA+ for the gray ones (which was an okay color match for the housings but not the drawers).  If your printer is large enough, you can print the single housing, or you can do like I did and print multiple half housings and attach them together.  Best method I found for attaching them is to use cyanoacrylate glue (super glue) to hold them together and then weld them together using a 3D printer pen for extra strength, then file flat with a file.  This worked really well and provided some excellent strength.  The provided housing model is rendered in a way that is most compatible, not most accurate, but the OpenSCAD file is provided so you can customize to exactly match existing drawer housings if you so choose.

If you're using printed housings with vintage cardboard drawers, you should add felt to the channels in the housings to keep them from being scratched up by the much harder 3D printed plastic.  For this, cut 40mm wide strips of felt and glue in place in the channels, making sure it's an archival felt or at least one which will not leech dye into the vintage cardboard.  I used these (the orange is a near-perfect color match):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08794TYY7/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087949Q88/

For drawer boxes, I used eSUN Gray PLA+, which was not a great color match for the originals.  I'd recommend using PLA+ but there is undoubtedly a closer color to the original printed cardboard boxes.  You could probably print these dual-color if you wanted them to be more accurate to the original color scheme.

For the internal box dividers, I used eSUN transparent PETG.  Print in vase mode with a large enough extrusion width to keep the walls stable.  This worked phenomenally well.  The box dividers are provided in sizes which match and fit with many of the original box sizes, although the short boxes and half-drawer divider box sizes are missing since they tend to be considerably less useful and are far more rare to encounter in an actual old set.

The lids are tricky, because you have to get the first layer and the flow rate absolutely perfect.  For best color, I liked 3DXTech Transparent Sapphire PETG.  Once the lid is done printing, you will need to fold the sides inward.  Please note that, just like in the originals, these do not reach the bottom of the drawer boxes, so they will not sit flush with the top unless you use dividers inside of the drawer boxes.

For the feet, I used 3DXTech black TPU for the stripe feet (the original stripe feet were black) and SainSmart gray TPU for the round feet (the original round feet were a dark gray).  However, I have very few examples in my collection of original vintage housings with round feet, so most of what I printed was the stripe feet, which I then glued into the channels on the bottom of the newly-printed replica housings (to be clear, I did not glue feet into original vintage housings) using cyanoacrylate glue (super glue).  This worked reasonably well.

Originally posted at: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/modulex-compatible-drawer-system