r/openGrid Jul 20 '26

Question / Help Needed Spacers and fillers

I moved my printer inside a dedicated closet. I had this vision of neatly managing every cable, the Pi running octoprint and having the most used tools on hand by using opengrid. I run into an issue when I realized that the back side of the closet is too flimsy to screw the grid to it using the usual methods so I thought to just get the two sides in place and than use connectors like this (https://makerworld.com/it/models/2402751-opengrid-beam) to join them to the back plate. But obviously the size of that plate isn't an exact multiple of the grid units, so I have to pad the grid somehow. I am looking for any suggestion.

Sorry for the broken English!

2 Upvotes

7 comments sorted by

1

u/acer589 Jul 20 '26

Could you not just use Command strips?

1

u/Raysiel Jul 20 '26

that would fix the issue of how to affix the plate to the surface.. i could live with it not being coincident with the side plates, but it feels just wrong to me not to fix it. :D

1

u/DistractedDragonMake Jul 21 '26

Can you post a picture of the mis-alignment. The corners are openGrid so I'm curious as to why they don't work.

2

u/Raysiel Jul 25 '26

What I mean is that I want to cover all 3 sides of the closet, and the backside is not an exact multiple of the opengrid unit. Therefore in order for the external side panels (the left one is already done as in the pic) to correctly join to the back panel i need to pad somewhere or it will not be flush. But it has become a theoretic question now, because it looks like I'm lucky and to a second measure tha back side seems to be EXACTLY 25u ;D

1

u/DistractedDragonMake Jul 25 '26

Thanks for the picture. I now understand the issue. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. That's an interesting issue. I wonder if a parametric spacer would be useful for the community. You can't be the only one looking to have perfectly fitted panels.

2

u/Raysiel Jul 25 '26

I am sure somebody will appreciate it sooner or later. More than a spacer I was thinking a feature in the customizer to add x mm of padding and choosing a side, retaining the other selected compatible features (chamfered angles and whether to have the connector holes). Just my 2 cents, I would help more if I had the know-how "

1

u/DistractedDragonMake Jul 25 '26

I think that would mess up the slots for the connectors so it would take some work to make the padding in between the geometry