solarbird | a storage system status supplement, sorta (Reply)

So far so good on the project storage system I’ve been testing out, but the little single-unit attachment has been a problem – kinda?

The actual mounting plate and shelf have both been great, but getting something to stick to the wall? That’s a problem. Command strips don’t like sticking to PLA, apparently. Neither does carpet tape.

So the shelf keeps falling off the wall. Not because the parts I’ve designed have failed, but because adhesives keep letting me – and it – down.

It’s because of plastic’s low surface energy, of course. But there are glues that work despite that, so I’m trying a layer of plastic epoxy to glue a layer of aluminium foil to the plastic, because aluminium has higher surface energy. And now I’m sticking the command strips to that.

The PLA should stick fine to the plastic epoxy which should stick fine to the aluminium which should stick fine to the more standard adhesive. The fact that the aluminium is weak and thin shouldn’t matter.

That version is what’s in this photo. 14 hours and counting:

micro-laptop on a single-height shelf hooked onto a project storage system wall unit

Hopefully it’ll work because a little mini-laptop shelf here is really nice – when it stays up.

Otherwise I don’t have much news on the project. A bunch of people downloaded STLs but nobody’s reported back yet. It’d be nice if people are doing some testing, though I don’t really think that’s very likely to be honest. I think durability is going to be pretty key, and so far, the actual components that are actually of this project are holding up really well. At least, here.

Fingers crossed and all that.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}.