5 Clever 3D Printer Projects To Upgrade Your Home Office
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Working from home can give you a lot of freedom. But, with that freedom, you also need to figure out how to sort out a few more things for yourself — such as setting up your own home office with all the gear you need. Once you’ve sorted out your basic furniture and any essential gadgets you need while working remotely, you might still feel like something’s missing without knowing exactly what it is you’re looking for. Alternatively, you might know what your problem is — messy cables, a lack of storage, not enough desk space — without knowing how to fix it.
That’s where 3D printing comes in. Sites like Printables, Thingiverse, and My Mini Factory are like catalogs for projects to help upgrade your home office. There are loads of different user-made solutions out there designed to improve your workspace, from modular cable management solutions that hide away under your desk to tiny shelves you can perch on top of your monitor for bits and pieces you need to keep close by.
The only problem is that there are so many projects out there to choose from that it’s hard to know where to start, what’s worth doing, and what’s a waste of filament, especially when you factor in any remixes and slight tweaks that have been made to other, existing listings. We’ve found some projects that stand out for their ingenuity, clever designs, and high user ratings.
Underware Cable Management Solution
Working from home can quickly turn from a private paradise into a sea of cables and clutter. At least, it can if you don’t have a robust system for managing your wires, chargers, and cords. This 3D printer project shared by HandsOnKatie offers Underware, a solution for eliminating cable chaos using an organizer that hides all your cables on the underside of your desk, so you won’t have to worry about it creating an eyesore or distracting you during your deep focus time.
What’s neat about this particular cable management system is that it’s designed to be completely modular. This means that you can put it together in different formations to suit your needs and set-up, without having to completely rearrange your desk just to tidy it up properly. Instead, you can fit your system to the layout you already have. And, if you decide your set-up doesn’t work for you, it’s designed to be completely reusable, so you don’t have to worry about creating waste or starting over.
Each part of the Underware is ready to print as-is, so you can pretty much just grab it and go. However, you’re in luck if you want to tweak it, as the system is completely open source. So, with time and skill, you can make alterations or add new parts further down the line.
Incastro Desk Organizer
Finding creative ways of storing and organizing odds and ends is one of the biggest challenges when trying to keep your home office neat and tidy. You might not really have a home for all your pen drives, or you might struggle to know where to put your SD cards without losing track of them. Instead of dumping them all in a drawer or leaving them lying around your desk, it might be time to print your own modular desk organizer.
Davideantonello‘s Incastro project offers a way to store small items on your desk without taking up too much room, courtesy of its high-density design. Perhaps the smartest part of the project is the module designed for organizing external storage, which offers several ports for each individual card or drive to slot safely into. That way, you can keep them out of harm’s way without losing track of them — and, if you label or color-coordinate them accordingly, you won’t need to play guess-the-USB-stick any more.
Something else useful about the Incastro is that its modular design means you can decide exactly which parts you want to print for a custom experience. For example, if you don’t want to print out the phone stand component, you can exclude it from your build entirely. It also means you could easily split up your organization after you’ve printed it if you decide you want a different layout further down the line.
Under-Desk Laptop Holder
Working from home looks different for everyone, but one thing’s for sure: there’s never quite as much space at your desk as you think there is. This is doubly the case if you’re juggling multiple computers, like a desktop and a laptop, or if you regularly need a clear work surface for using other tools or working on paper. Thankfully, much like with your cable management, you can make the most of the underside of your desk for stowing your laptop, MacBook, or a light notebook, if you prefer to work analog.
Printables user Spaceman 3D‘s under-desk laptop holder offers a home for most laptops with just a few brackets and screws. It’s a fairly straightforward project, as it’s easy to print and install. You just need to screw a couple of brackets onto the underside of your desk, or wherever you plan on using it, and it’s good to go. Just be sure to pick the right kind of screws, and check that your desk is sturdy enough to hold your laptop.
The holder doesn’t have to just be for when you aren’t using your laptop, either. You could also use it to play around with your whole desk’s layout to create loads of space for your peripherals and useful USB gadgets. For example, you could use your laptop with the lid closed or in clamshell mode while it’s stashed away in the holder by hooking it up to an external monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
Adjustable Monitor Shelf
If the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” rings true to you, then you might want to consider carving out a space in your home office where you keep all the small things you might need often, like your glasses, security keys, or earplugs. One option for making sure that little space is placed somewhere that you can keep an eye on is a monitor shelf, like this one made by GiskardReventlov.
This neat shelf takes a simple concept and turns it into a creative, practical solution to help keep your desk clutter-free while you’re working from home. The support arm that keeps the shelf in place is adjustable, so it should be easy to fit it to most modern monitors, as well as offering a perforated surface to make sure that air can flow safely around your device for ample cooling. You can either print it in place to streamline things, or you can print the shelf as two separate parts.
Besides being a useful spot for keeping track of easy-to-lose knick-knacks, it also offers clever solutions for laying out your desk so that it specifically suits you. For instance, you could use the shelf to place your webcam at a higher angle or keep a mini fan up there.
Office Keyboard & Device Stand
Generally speaking, keyboard stands aren’t the most out-there gadgets. However, Josh Clos‘ multi-tiered keyboard and device stand is a little different, as it offers spaces for you to stack up multiple devices at once while still keeping them accessible and usable. The stand is designed to sit below raised monitors, offering a tilted space to put a tablet or phone onto, a platform for your keyboard, and a gap for your cables to tuck into.
The stand’s lower shelf offers a clever solution for keeping a second screen nearby, without the need to invest in a second monitor. Admittedly, if you’re using a tablet, then the screen will be much smaller than a second monitor, but it could save you some money if it’s not something that you need all the time. It’s also a useful layout if you need to type up and summarize notes from a notebook.
Although the obvious use for the lower shelf is a phone or tablet, the stand was actually designed to accommodate multiple computers on one desk at the same time. So, if you need to use different devices for different jobs, or want to make room at your desk for your personal PC alongside your work-supplied equipment, this project could be a useful option. Alternatively, you could use the lower shelf as a way of keeping any items you need to grab often close to hand. It has a textured surface, so it should be a reasonable non-stick option for organizing any items small enough to fit on it, like notepads or remote controls.
