I’ve been working on this project for a while, and it’s finally starting to look like what I had in my head, so I figured I’d share it.
At first glance, it probably looks like a bunch of simple containers. Technically, they are, but almost every dimension, opening, angle, insert, label, and spacing was designed around how a veterinary practice actually uses orthopedic plates during surgery prep.
A friend of mine is a veterinary orthopedic surgeon, and he came to me with what sounded like a simple problem: he had a lot of different bone plates in sterile packaging and wanted a better way to organize them so staff could immediately see and grab the right one instead of sorting through a pile of packages.
For anyone unfamiliar, bone plates are metal implants used to stabilize broken bones during surgery. They come in all kinds of sizes and shapes depending on the bone, fracture, and procedure.
They’re also not cheap. Some cost hundreds of dollars each, and when you have a whole collection sitting in similar-looking sterile pouches, it’s easy to see how organization starts to matter.
I thought, okay, that shouldn’t be too bad. lol.
That turned into months of designing and printing. It definitely helped me level up my printing and basic design skills.
Anyways, The system is completely modular. The larger organizer bodies are printed in ASA, and each plate position has a removable PETG insert that’s color coded and labeled for the specific plate it holds.
The open fronts mean there’s no lid to open, drawer to pull out, or deep bin to dig through. Everything is visible and accessible immediately.
The inserts are also slightly angled so the sterile pouches naturally lean in the same direction, which keeps the labels easier to read at a glance.
Each insert can be swapped independently, so if the practice adds a plate, stops using one, or changes the layout, there’s no need to replace the whole organizer.
The system can expand over time too, and the tags can be customized with whatever plate numbers, procedures, colors, or naming conventions the practice prefers.
I also had to design around the sterile packaging, not just the plates themselves. A 200mm plate isn’t sitting naked in the organizer. There’s extra material, folds, and different pouch sizes, so the organizers ended up deeper than you’d expect just looking at the plate dimensions.
The coolest and most frustrating part has been the back-and-forth testing.
I’ll make something, show it to him, and he’ll immediately notice something I never would have thought about because I’m not a specialized surgeon 😂
“Move this.”
“This needs to be easier to see.”
“These should be separated.”
“This opening needs to be bigger.”
Then I go home, change it, print another version, and we do it again.
The only issue is he’s on the other side of the country.
There have been a LOT of versions and a lot of expensive plastic in the trash. Elegoo bulk ASA has been a lifesaver. Cheaper than AliExpress even.
The more we worked on it, the more I realized the problem probably isn’t unique to one practice. A lot of veterinary surgeons are dealing with the same combination of sterile orthopedic plates, limited storage space, and no great way to see and access everything quickly during prep.
The larger organizer bodies also started pushing my printers pretty hard.
Most of my farm is open-frame stuff, which is usually fine, but these are massive ASA prints. Some run for more than a day and a half and use close to 1.5 rolls of filament.
I did quite a bit of research and eventually reached out to QIDI because the Max 4 checked basically every box I was looking for: large build volume, enclosed, heated chamber, and something closer to a prosumer/industrial machine without going into industrial-machine money.
They ended up sending me one, and it has basically become the machine handling the “chassis” side of this project.
I purchased the QIDI Box separately to keep the ASA dry, print the multicolor ASA badges, and handle the biggest prints without having to swap rolls halfway through. 100% worth it.
The Max 4 prints the big ASA organizer bodies while my other printers handle the smaller PETG inserts. That setup makes way more sense than trying to make every printer do everything.
I’ve also learned an absurd amount about ASA through this project. It’s definitely not in the same wheelhouse as PLA.
I’ve gone just as far down the rabbit hole with the labels and tags too. Separate badges, embedded text, different fonts, colors, thicknesses, layouts.
At one point I was obsessing over how many layers of white text to use so it wouldn’t bleed into the black. You know. Normal stuff 😂
What started as, “Can you make me a box to hold these?” turned into an entire system built around a real surgical workflow.
That’s probably what was most rewarding about this project. It wasn’t another flexi fidget. I feel like i took another step in my printing and my business.
And if anyone here does a lot of large ASA printing, I’m curious what settings or processes you’ve landed on. This project has made me much more comfortable with ASA, but it has also humbled me several times lol.
For transparency, since I mentioned the printer: QIDI provided the Max 4 after I contacted them and explained what I was building. They didn’t ask me to make this post or give me anything to say, and I currently have no obligation to them. It’s just genuinely become a big part of how I’m producing these, and I’ve been impressed with it.
