Shelf Box & Tissue Holder

PROJECT SUMMARY

As a personal project, I designed this modular 3D-printed box, which slides onto a narrow shelf near my bed. My objective was to make a convenient receptacle for a tissue box or small objects that would otherwise be easily knocked off the shelf. Designed in Onshape, the box features two extrusions to grab onto the shelf, and various chamfers and fillets to remove sharp corners. The opening is sized to a standard vertical tissue box. I currently have three of these boxes next to each other on my shelf, where they have proven extremely useful.
PRINT TIME AT HIGH QUALITY (H)
INSIDE DEPTH (MM)
OPENING VOLUME (CM^3)

DESIGN & STUCTURE

I designed the box with a focus on simplicity and effectiveness. The opening fits a standard vertical tissue box, while the two bottom extrusions are carefully sized and placed to fit the shelf. The inside edges of the opening have a slight chamfer that extends halfway down, allowing tissue boxes to slide comfortably into place. Additional fillets and chamfers improve aesthetics, remove sharp corners, and soften certain exposed edges.
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Side profile. Note the extrusion geometry
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Close-up of box on the shelf, LED side

ITERATION & CHALLENGES

The biggest challenge was creating a base geometry that would hold on to the (imperfect) shelf, without blocking the LED lights on the near side. A ⅛" step on the far side extrusion prevents vertical motion, but this cannot work on the LED side. There, a flat extrusion prevents horizontal motion.

Vertical motion is entirely prevented by this geometry and the very small tolerance between the extrusions and the shelf (for installation). During slicing, the walls were reinforced and infill was specially aligned to minimize the chance of the extrusions breaking off. Given the small loads that the box experiences, this risk is quite low.

RESULTS & FUTURE UPGRADES

The box works excellently and has repeatedly proven its utility. The relatively short  print time makes production easy, so I made a set of three to use up my entire shelf space. Future upgrades could include the same base but differently sized openings (either for different tissue boxes, or holding bigger things) or varied base geometries based on the shelves available. Finally, re-slicing the box STL file before printing will help reduce infill visibility and improve overall aesthetics.
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Three of the boxes on my shelf