Media Shelf Dividers w/ Optional Alphabetical Labels

Warning: these are sized perfectly for my shelves, you may need to adjust the depth and/or edge gap for yours. The gap should wrap as tightly as possible around your shelf without warping,  while still being possible to move left and right when standing straight up. This is trivial to modify in Blender, instructions below.

The dimensions of my shelves are
Edge gap: 13.1mm
Depth: 142mm

These are dividers for putting in an alphabetically organized media shelf. They also function as bookends, preventing the whole row from falling over when you remove a single item.

Just print the bracket, then print the labels (with a filament change for the lettering) and insert on your shelf!

There are 2 types of dividers: one with a back section and one without. The intent is that you use the ones with a back in the middle of your shelves, and the ones without a back on the end that is not against the wall. This is because the divider with a back will help to support your boxes and stop them from twisting, but at the end of the shelf you don't want that because it causes the divider to twist out of position. This will make sense once you start installing them. You could do it all with the backless version if you so choose.

I have also provided versions without a label slot, in case you prefer to use a sticker or something like that.

The font used is Bethany Ellingston by Attract Studio. It is licensed as free for personal use, but not commercial. This means you cannot use this model for commercial purposes with this font, unless you pay the author for a commerical license. I made a donation to the author as a thanks, since I am distributing a model with their font for non-commercial purposes.

I selected this font primarily because it is a sarif font (which are typically easier to read in print) which has letters of a similar width. My wife and I also liked how it looked.

Printing notes

Labels

• I have incuded a 3mf file configured to print these nicely.

• Use the smallest diameter nozzle you can (I used 0.25mm).

• Turn on ironing for a nice finish.

• I added a sacrificial cylinder to the build plate to act as a wipe tower for the first layer, included in the 3mf. Without this, I found that the first label I printed was too gnarly to use. Do verify in your slicer that it is printing that cylinder first.

Dividers

• You can fit two of them on the build plate of a Prusa MK4.

• Don't be like me! For most of mine I used cheap filament and a 0.8mm nozzle, and I really regret it. Use a 0.4mm nozzle and some kind of decent filament. You will note that the main one I photographed looks quite good, but all the other ones look kinda crappy. This is why.

  • In particular, the labels fit very loosely in the bad ones I printed. In the nice one I made for the photo, they fit perfectly.

• These also look great with ironing if you want the sides to be smooth, but it does take ages.

Modifications

Changing the font

If you would like a different font you can ask me to do it so long as the font you want is licensed appropriately for me to publish. You can also do it yourself:

1. Open labels.blend in Blender.

2. Modify Alphabet with the font you want.

3. Correct the font size and line spacing so that everything still lines up.

4. Select the model Labels and do Object -> Apply -> Visual Geometry to Mesh.

5. Select the new model, go into edit mode, then do Mesh -> Separate -> By Loose Parts.

6. Select the parts that were just created, then do File -> Export -> STL.

7. Enable Batch and Selection Only.

8. Export STL.

Changing dimensions

I don't think it would be great to upload a bazillion different edge widths and depths for every possible shelf. You can easily modify the depth and edge gap in Blender by grabbing the vertices and moving them. No, Blender is not the best tool for engineering work, but it's the tool I know and one day I'll get around to learning Freecad.

1. Open Blender.

2. Go to the Scene menu and adjust the Length and Unit Scale to match this (millimeters and 0.001).

   

3. Drag the STL file into Blender and click Import STL.

4. Click the Z to get an overhead view. 

   

5. Enable X-ray mode.

   

6. Enable Edit Mode.

   

7. Select vertices.

   

8. Drag a selection box over the edge vertices (as shown).

   

9. Select the Move tool.

   

10. Move the vertices any amount in X (we will fine tune momentarily).

    

11. A box will appear in the lower left corner showing what you just did. Modify the X value to the amount you actually wanted to increase or decrease the gap. The existing gap is 13.3mm.

    1. So for example, if your shelf requires a 15mm gap, you would modify the X movement to read 1.7mm.

12. File -> Export -> STL

Modifying this design

Before modifying this design, observe and adhere to the terms of the specified license.