I was tired of losing Resistors... So I Built THIS

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Okay, guys. I've had some free time and I was thinking of problems that I can solve using engineering and the perfect one came to my brain. Come check it out.

[00:00:07]So, I recently cleaned my desk and I realized, man, I have a lot of resistors and right now they're sorted cuz I just got this kit. They are sorted by resistance. But as I take them out, they won't long be in these little holders much longer. You may be thinking, why is this a problem? Like, what what do you need to do with these? I am gonna make a sorting compartment. Like I'm thinking of these little drawers to sort these because check this [music] out. I got the Eloo kit and their resistors are blue and the colors on there are very difficult to differentiate from resistor to resistor. And to add on to it, I'm color blind. So it's hard to know what resistors are which. And I don't want to be looking real close and trying to figure out and looking up a resistor chart. So you know what? I'm just going to sort these. make a compartment and let's get them organized. This idea and project was inspired by my electronics teacher who uh has drawers kind of like I'm about to make, but he didn't actually make them. So, I'm going to be a little bit cooler and make them myself using my 3D printer. I'm just kidding.

[00:01:13]That was like one of my best teachers, so can't even hate. If we go to my engineering handbook, this is basically my idea. So, there's going to be 12 slots. I have 10 different kinds of resistors, but 10 doesn't really like fit nicely unless you do like 2x5, but I want it a little taller. So, we're just going to add uh two extra compartments just in case I get more resistors in the future. This doesn't have to be too big because for each resistor, I don't really have that much. So, it just has to be little tiny drawers. And I want to like write on them what resistance they are so I don't have to like guess and check or have like a separate document.

[00:01:47]So, yeah, let's get designing on CAD.

[00:01:49]Here's our plan. We're going to design the shelf, design the drawer separately, test and revise, and upload this video.

[00:01:54]These don't have to be too big. I was thinking about 1 and 12 in wide, which is small, but and then I'm going to do 1 in tall. So, it won't be too bad. Like, it's not big, but it's not small. And then like probably 2 in 2 to 3 in long.

[00:02:09]Probably two.

[00:02:11][music] Okay, here is my shelf design. Very simple, very easy. And if you need to look to the scale, this is how tall it is, like from this angle. So, not like super big. Two 2.25 in. But let's get it printed. This is the easy part. The hard part is going to be able to make shelves or little like drawers that actually go into it. I'm also adding some fillets around the edges to make it easier for the printer to actually go around these corners. So, I'm not going to do it on the inside, but at least in a real world situation, this would be much better on the [music] printer than uh let's just like a sharp straight edge.

[00:02:52][music] Hold on, pause. I got an email from a local engineering company if I have a resume to send and I'm pretty excited cuz I emailed them about working there.

[00:03:01]So, little pause. Okay, sorry about that. That pause ended up being like one or two days, but check this out. the drawer. [music] And I come to think of it, I feel like this is going to be way too big for like only the few resistors I have. But I already printed the actual like holder. So, let's go get that real quick. Okay, let's take this guy off. It ran out of the filament like halfway through the print, but there's really like no like no like it's right here.

[00:03:26]You can see there's slightly line, but you you would never even know. So, I got the new one in. We're good to go. Let's take this off. Remember, never use the forbidden tool. If you know, you know.

[00:03:37]All right. Oh, that came off just easy.

[00:03:40]Let's get it. My initial idea was to 3D print the shelves so they already had a built-in engraved uh resistance on them.

[00:03:47]But due to me having so little amount of resistors and too many cupboards, I'm going to leave it just like blank so I actually know and I can customize it.

[00:03:55]So, I'll either stick a piece of paper or write on it or whatever. Okay, let me walk you through this. So, we have this simple little handle that you're just going to pull to pull out the drawer.

[00:04:02]Uh, all the dimensions are like point zero to smaller than what this actually is. So, it should fit in. And in the back here, just in case it doesn't fit.

[00:04:12]I had a slightest little fillet, which I really don't think would be enough, but I don't also want to make it too loose in there. So, we're just going to print one just to test it out and see how it goes. Okay, we got the one shelf or the one drawer on here, and it's going to be 29 minutes. s a little bit. But while that is going, I realized when this is going to be on my desk, it can easily just slide around like this. And my initial idea was to just tape sandpaper to the bottom. I realized that we had some old uh cabinet liner that makes your stuff in your drawers work and not move and slide around. So, I figured I just cut that and tape it to the bottom of this. See if it works.

[00:04:54][music] Okay. I was originally going to use tape to just tape those uh little liners onto the bottom of the shelves. And I realized I don't really want it to sit up any higher than it already is.

[00:05:03][music] And yes, I know the best way to do it is to use rubber footings, but I don't have any of those and I don't want to buy any. So, I'm just doing DIY home whatever [music] you want to call it.

[00:05:12]So, today we're going back to kindergarten. We're going to use Elmer's stick glue and just glue them on there cuz why not? Let's see if it works.

[00:05:19]Plus, if I want to take those off in the future and actually get rubber footings, I can [music] without having like permanent damage to the piece and having to re reuse filament.

[00:05:30][music] I'm going to let this dry for a second, but as you can see, that'll work just fine. And we'll give it a test here in a second. But yeah, I'm just using random stuff from my house to make this even better. Uh, obviously, it's not the most professional or clean or whatever, but it's going to work for what I want it to do. [music] So, that's all you can ask for.

[00:05:53]Okay, we got the first shelf off of the printer. Time to double test. First test. Does the grip work?

[00:06:00]Oh yeah, that thing is not sliding.

[00:06:02][music] Like I could really push it, but no. It's not just going to slide on its own. Okay, now the shelf. Look at that.

[00:06:09]Will it slide in? Let me get a better grip.

[00:06:16]Oh my goodness.

[00:06:18]Look at that. That's just perfect.

[00:06:22]Perfect.

[00:06:30]As you guys just saw, this works [music] absolutely perfectly. So, one thing I am worried about though, I just noticed it as I started this video.

[00:06:38]That happens. But, uh, for this application being just on a desk, that's not really something you're going to really have to worry about too much. So, I'm not worried about it. But in the future, that is something I could look at to improve. So now, let's get some resistors in there and [music] print 11 more shelves. Hey, look at that. We got the resistors in there. And actually, the room is actually not bad. I mean, obviously, it could stack up way higher, but it'll be just fine. And I left a little 10 in there just so I know what they are before I actually find a cool way to customize this. It's a little hard to see with the glare, but I managed to fit all 11 on my A1 mini [music] plate. So, that's pretty sick.

[00:07:13]So, yeah, it's going to take 3 hours.

[00:07:14]So, I guess in 3 hours I'll get back with you guys. Okay, breaking news. I went to show my stepdad that what I built and like how I glued those liners on the bottom. And he's like, [music] you know, we have like command strips.

[00:07:26]Not only do we have like command strips, we also have rubber footings. There's only three. So, I think I can get away with what I did. Plus, it's recycling cuz we were just going to throw that away anyway. So, I guess it's for a good cause. But, there was better ways I could have done that. Okay, guys. The drawers are done and we now have our final product. At least for now. There we go. So, obviously the only thing I might ever change is these bottom footings to just keep the grip. But look, [music] these drawers work perfectly. I already got my resistors in there. And for now, I'm just leaving that piece of paper so I know which one's which. But I [music] got them uh in order by resistance. And then with the extra ones, I have some LEDs and then some of that uh gripping right there. Oh my plane. No. That being said, that is another successful mission here on Reinhardt Engineering. I built a storage container or drawers, whatever you want to call it, for my resistors, making it more organized, making my life easier. It was worth it. So, with that being said, lots of lessons to learn here. Uh, first of all, consider your materials before you just use random stuff and try and find the best option.

[00:08:30]Two, uh, practice your tolerances cuz I'd preferably make instead of doing 02 in smaller, I'd probably do 0.01. So, it's slightly tighter, but these work just fine. So, I'm not worried about it.

[00:08:41]And three, know the limits. Like, you don't have to go above and beyond for something that doesn't need above to be above and beyond. Cuz like I said, like what I built works or exactly what I want it to work. I didn't do anything extra fancy that uses extra materials cuz here's another idea I had for this.

[00:08:58]Initially, to keep it to my desk, I was going to have something that sticks out here and then I was going to make a C clamp or use a C clamp to clamp it to my desk. that would end up using way more materials for something so simple when I could just simply use my kindergarten Elmer's glue. So yes, with that being said, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. More coming in the future. Let me know if you have any ideas. Let me know if you see some problems in this cuz hey, other opinions and other viewpoints always help. So with that being said, have an amazing day. Go check out some of my other videos. They're all pretty fun to watch. And with that being said, have a great day.