Solder Grid

And so, out of nothing, something was born. The first tile, a swallow heralding the arrival of countless, utterly excessive, and completely unnecessary 3D prints.

That’s basically where it all started. I always have a problem with losing solder paste jars, so I wanted to make a holder where I’d always keep one. The tray is designed for a round jar with a 66 mm diameter. An extra 0.5 mm of tolerance is added to the diameter so the jar doesn’t get jammed in the tray.

Rules should be simple. There shouldn’t be many of them, and they should be easy to remember. And in mechanical design, rules should be beautiful. Ugly rules are bad rules. A beautiful rule is a 10 mm base thickness for a tray. 7.62 mm would be an ugly thickness. Rules exist to be broken, but they should only be broken when it serves a purpose. Breaking rules just for the pleasure of destroying a beautiful system is like trampling fresh flowers growing in a forest clearing.

RULES:

• Basic cell dimensions: 80 × 80 × 10 mm
• The space for magnets (or clips) starts 8 mm from the tray wall (8 mm is 1/10 of 80. That’s a nice rule).
• The magnet slot is 8 mm long, 4 mm wide and 9 mm deep (those were exactly the magnets I happened to have at home over the holidays. Not every rule has to come from deep research; some are happy accidents).
• Wall thickness at the magnets: 1.5 mm
• The trays have 4 mm chamfered corners. I don’t fully know why yet, but I’m sure it will be important. And it looks much better.

6 mm was too thin, 8 mm was definitely too thick.

That’s all. And yet, that’s everything. A handful of rules to brand the wicked and reward the righteous.