AlmightyBuilds

The Case, and What Actually Fits

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I want to build hardware, not just write the software that runs on it. Products of my own eventually, which means far more evenings with an iron in my hand than I currently get. There’s also a decent chance I’ll be working from different places for stretches, and a bench that only exists in one room doesn’t survive that.

So: the whole bench in a case. Plug in one cable, open the lid, and work. Close it and the project is still sitting there, half finished, exactly where it was. That last part matters as much as the portability does, because the thing that actually stops a project at home is having to clear the table.

Starting from a picture

Before measuring anything, I had an image generator draw me the thing I wanted.

AI-generated concept, not a plan. Useful for arguing with.

The second one. Note the external dimensions, which are also wrong.

Both of these are generated. Neither is a design and I want to be clear about that, because they look far more like decisions than they are. A generator fills space with whatever is plausible, so it gave me a three slot PDU, banana jacks, an 830 point breadboard and a pair of magnetic gooseneck lamps. None of it came from me.

What they were good for is arguing with. Looking at them told me quickly which bits I actually wanted, which is roughly: power across the back, tools in the lid, parts down one side, and a flat area in the middle big enough to solder on. That much still holds. The specific instruments and the layout in the pictures do not.

Then the tape measure

The actual case, empty.

The case is a Wisent aluminium tool case. It came as a set of three nested sizes and this is the largest of them. Bauhaus sells a newer version of the same set.

Here’s what’s actually inside it:

Base: 44.5 cm wide, 31.5 cm deep, 10 cm from floor to rim
Lid: 44.5 cm wide, 32 cm deep, 4.5 cm from lining to rim

That’s about 20 litres all in, and only 14 of it is in the base where anything heavy has to go.

The generated images had this wrong in every direction, and I had to correct almost every number by two to four centimetres once I had the case in front of me. More to the point, they show a case with room to spare. There’s no room to spare. 10 cm of depth is what decides the layout. It’s the height of the power supply plus whatever it sits on, or it’s the height of a work surface with storage underneath, and it isn’t both unless I’m careful.

What has to go in

A lab power supply, adjustable, which is the deepest single item
A soldering iron
A gooseneck lamp, so the work area is lit without needing the room to be
A third hand
Component storage, small parts sorted rather than in a bag
A flat area big enough to actually solder on
Power distribution feeding all of it, from one inlet on the outside of the case

Most of that already exists and is listed on the tools page. What this build adds is a fixed home for each one, a power feed, and some chance of surviving being carried around.

Power is the part I’ve most firmly decided. There’ll be one mains inlet on the case, the same kind of socket a desktop PC uses, so it takes an ordinary kettle lead and nothing dangles. Behind that sits a distribution unit I already have, with three AC sockets and USB outputs on it. The FNIRSI bench supply is a separate box again, and it plugs into that distribution unit like everything else. One lead in, one switch, and the case is live.

What it has cost so far

Bought for this build

Item	Qty	Unit	Line
Wisent aluminium case set, three nested sizes — opens the supplier page in a new tabWhat I paid for the whole set. Only the largest case is in this build and the other two do other jobs, so read this as the cost of the box the project starts from. The link is to a newer version of the same set, not the one I bought.	1×	€54.00	€54.00
Total			€54.00

One line, because the case is the only thing bought for this specifically. The bench supply, the iron, the third hand and the rest are already on the tools page and were bought to be used, not to live in a box. The distribution unit, the MakerBeam and the aluminium for the internal frame are here too, and I will price those in Part 3 when they are actually mounted and I know what got used.

The number I actually want to know is what the internal frame, the panel cutting and the connectors add up to. None of that has been bought yet.

Where it actually is

Early planning, and I’d rather say so than pretend otherwise. The case is bought and measured. I’ve got the distribution unit, the aluminium and MakerBeam parts for the internal frame, and I’ve printed a pegboard for the inside of the lid. Nothing is mounted, nothing is wired, and I haven’t committed to a layout.

Part 2 is the lid and that printed pegboard. It’s the easiest part of the case to get right, and a good place to find out how the printed fittings behave. Part 3 is the first real layout and the power distribution going in, which is where the 10 cm gets tested properly. I think it’ll take at least six parts before the case works as a bench. What parts four onward are, I don’t know yet.

A Tent Frame for a Projector Screen

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

We watch films on the balcony. The screen hangs on hooks that are already there, all 72 inches of it sits flat, and it has never been a problem.

Then, before a beach day, someone said we should bring the projector instead of the laptop.

That’s the whole origin. Nothing failed and nothing needed fixing. A screen is just much better than a wall, and the balcony already solves it. What the balcony has and a beach doesn’t is two hooks at the right height. Take the projector anywhere else and the screen is the part with no answer.

What it has to do

It has to travel, and travel means a backpack, not a car boot. No section longer than a backpack is tall, nothing heavy enough to notice on the walk in. It has to stand up in sand, which doesn’t hold a foot the way a floor does. And it has to survive wind, because a screen is a sail. That much was obvious before anything got printed.

I didn’t go looking for an existing solution. I never searched for a stand or compared what’s sold. The idea of a modular tent-like frame turned up more or less whole, I opened Fusion, and I ordered the aluminium before I’d finished modelling. Whether something on a shelf would have done the job, I don’t know.

The design

The frame is a rectangle: two uprights, a top rail across them, a bottom rail below. Aluminium in 6 mm stock, bought in 1 m lengths and cut down, with printed connectors doing every join. That’s the whole idea. Once a sleeve, a tee and a corner exist, the frame is whatever arrangement of tube and joints the site needs, and the same printed set covers a different span without reprinting anything.

Five parts came out of that. Each one is below as the file I print, so drag it around.

Basic connector

Download Basic_Connector.stl — Basic connector. 50 mm sleeve, 10 mm across the outside.

An inline sleeve joining two tube sections end to end. It’s what turns one long tube into two that fit in the bag, and it does nothing else.

Top bracket

Download Top_Bracket.stl — Top bracket. The corner, with the guy-line eyelet on the outside of the bend.

A 90° elbow at each top corner, taking the vertical post into the horizontal one. It also carries an eyelet on the outside of the bend, where the guy line ties off. That’s the right place for it, because the corner is where the leverage is.

Clip connector

Download Clip_Connector.stl — Clip connector. Collar, eyelet, and the threaded hole for the thumb screw.

A collar that slides onto a tube and locks with a thumb screw, with an eyelet on the side for a carabiner or a rope. This is how the screen attaches. Because it slides before it’s tightened, I can put the attachment points where the screen wants them instead of where I guessed. A different screen is then a matter of moving four collars.

T connector

Download T_Connector.stl — T connector. 54 mm across, same collar and thumb screw as the clip.

The same collar and thumb screw as the clip, taking a second tube off at right angles. There’s one on each upright and they carry the bottom rail between them. It locks rather than glues, so the rail slides up and down the posts instead of sitting at one fixed height.

Auger connector

Download Auger_Connector.stl — Auger connector. 117 mm of thread, and the part I have the least evidence about.

117 mm of screw thread on the bottom of each upright. It threads into sand or soil instead of resting on top of it, which is what a flat foot can’t do. It’s also the biggest single print in the set.

Two of the five have a thumb screw, and that’s the one idea here I’m reasonably sure about. Everything else is fixed geometry. A sleeve is a sleeve and an elbow is 90°. I settled all of that at a desk, before standing on the beach it’s for. The clip and the tee are where that guess would hurt most, so those are the two that got a fastener.

Everything prints in Creality Hyper PETG. PETG rather than PLA because it’s going to sit in direct sun, and because it takes a knock without snapping the way PLA does.

The screen hangs on carabiners or rope rather than anything printed and permanent, so the frame isn’t tied to one screen. Paracord guy lines to tent stakes take whatever the augers can’t hold on their own, which on a windy day is most of it.

The first dry fit

Everything above is geometry until the parts are on real metal, so before cutting anything I put the connectors on full 1 m lengths and stood the result in the corner of the room.

Two things to be clear about. There are no sleeves in it, because nothing has been cut yet and the joint the sleeve solves doesn’t exist. And the aluminium is uncut, so the proportions aren’t the proportions. It’s whatever shape 1 m sections happen to make, not the shape a 72 inch screen wants.

What it does show is that the corners hold their angle and the tees hold a rail at height, under the frame’s own weight and nothing else. Small, but it’s the reason the next order is more aluminium rather than a redesign.

What I have not settled

Nothing has been thrown away yet, only because nothing has been properly tested yet. What I have instead is a list of decisions I made once and haven’t checked since.

Whether every joint wants a thumb screw. Two have one. Any joint might turn out to be the one you need to adjust on site. Against that, every thumb screw is another loose object to drop in sand, and a frame with eight of them takes longer to put up than a frame with two.

Whether some joints should stop being joints. The opposite question. Some of these connections may never need to come apart, and if a piece is always assembled the same way then glue or a rivet through the collar would be stiffer and lighter than a fastener. The cost is that it stops folding flat. I don’t know yet which joints those are, and I’d rather find out outdoors than decide now.

100% infill. Every connector is printed solid. That was a strength decision made without measuring anything, and it may well be overkill. It costs print time and filament, and it costs weight, on a thing whose whole premise is that you carry it on your back. I haven’t printed one at 40% and pulled both apart to compare, so solid is still a guess.

Whether the auger holds. This is the big one. The whole anchoring idea rests on a printed thread biting into sand or soil well enough to hold a tensioned screen in wind, and it has never been in the ground. Sand and soil aren’t the same problem either. Dry sand gives a thread almost nothing to bite, and soil can be hard enough to strip it on the way in. I don’t get to know which until I stand on a beach with it.

What the idea cost

Two orders, both in July 2026, both from Estonian suppliers. The filament is counted by what the printer actually used rather than by the spool, because a spool lasts many builds and charging a whole one to this build would say something untrue about what it cost. The aluminium is counted as bought, since all six lengths were bought for this and none of them has another job. The carabiners, paracord and stakes belong with the finished build later on.

What the first version usedPrices as of July 2026

Item	Qty	Unit	Line
Aluminium round stock, anodised, 1000 × 6 mmFrom Espak. Six metre lengths, to be cut down to the section sizes.	6×	€1.68	€10.08
Creality Hyper PETG, grey, 149 g — opens the supplier page in a new tabArvutitark 3301030068. What the print used, not the spool: the spool is 15.95 for 1 kg, and the connectors took 149 g of it.	1×	€2.38	€2.38
Total			€12.46

Six lengths was a guess and I’m still not sure it’s enough. Two more may go in the next order once the frame has been up at full size and I know what the section lengths want to be.

The printed side comes to 149 g for the whole set:

Augers, 45 g
T connectors and sleeves, 53 g
Clips, 29 g
Thumb screws, 14 g
90° brackets, 8 g

That’s at 100% infill, and the connectors for an entire screen stand still come in under 150 grams, which is 2.38 euros of filament. Whatever the argument against printing them solid is, it isn’t cost. Weight might be, and print time definitely is.

The thumb screws are printed too, M6, same PETG. There’s no bought hardware in the frame at all: no bolts, no inserts, nothing metal except the aluminium. Whether printed M6 threads survive being tightened by cold hands on a beach is another Part 2 question.

Part 2 is the assembly test: the frame going up properly for the first time, cut to length, with the screen actually hanging on it. That might be outdoors or it might be the living room floor, and either way it answers the questions about fit and stiffness and the thumb screws. The ground questions need real ground, so whether the augers hold in sand is a separate trip and probably a separate post.