I’ve been trying to stretch my wings a bit in the workshop lately and incorporate laser cutting into some designs. Being a fan of tier zoo I thought to make a tier list shelf with swappable labels
It took me less than a month to complete the prototype
Not bad at all for a prototype!!
However, some of you may have heard of this little horrible creature called "scope creep"
Part of my original premise was that this should be modular, the default will be 5 tiers tall and then you can add 1, 2, or 3 tier expansions to make a really unique tier list!
The problem with designing something modular? You have to lock down designs to be future proof. If I don't have a system that is rock solid and changes shortly after I start shipping.. Well then the new stuff won't be compatible with the old stuff. And I spent the next 3 months going down a rabbit hole trying to make things perfect
Right off the bat I noticed that it needed to have each tier be taller, or else almost half of amiibo and many other collectables wouldn't fit. So the new default tier size is around 4.3", bringing the whole thing to almost 2 feet tall!
Then I noticed that most tier lists don't actually use primary colors. They use a slightly muted pallet
So I went out and sourced some matte fillaments in some slightly more muted tones
I also didn't like how the rails covered up a little corner of the tag, so I designed them to wrap around the rail to keep it as authentic as possible
Ok! Don't hate that! I show off the prototype to some friends and coworkers and someone brings up "if it's for collectors they're probably gonna want some way to put it on their walls, or at least protect the stuff inside in case it gets bumped"
Oh yeah, of course, that's easy enough to add!
(it wasn't, it wasn't that easy to add, the wall mount I initially designed wanted to pop out when you put it onto the screw, and to cut acrylic that thin made it SUPER prone to cracking, so I had to swap it out for PET)
But my coworker says to me, he says:
"that would be sick if it lit up"
And he was right, but that was going to be a whole thing to design in the space constraints
And while I'm thinking aloud about how to implement it in a discrete way he says "and the lights have to be able to change colors to match the tags"
And, being reasonable for the first time this whole project I told Him "NO."
ARGB LEDs are WAY more expensive than regular white ones, and I'd either need a microcontroller to controll all the different lights or else I'd have to have a switch on each tier and those are SURPRINGLY EXPENSIVE!
And if I just ran ARGBS through the whole thing without having a proper solution it would just be rainbow colored nonsense like so many gamer PCs. Not worth it. Especially if this going to be modular! How would that even work??
I stopped being smart and setting reasonable limits on the project and said: "How about I do anyway?"
Turns out if I got higher end leds (90+ cri) I could design filters that isolate the colors I want!
Also turns out that if you don't design that REALLY carefully white light will leak out or the material will flex over the 11 or so inches it has to span to cover the lights. But after months of trail and error and testing specialty materials I found a way to make the rails work "just right" with the lighting system!
And I was able to make the main power conduit work with a daisy chain design, so you can plug extra tiers into the top or bottom and really customize things further
Keeping with the tier list design I also came up with "reveal cards" you can slide off while showing off your picks
For now I only put the unlit version and the light up tier list version on my store. But I'm going to have a more universal "Customizable shelf" too: that one will use the rails and tags for things besides just tier lists
I've listed the first couple shelves, but I have to put my store on vacation mode Friday night for a week, if someone orders before then I'll have it shipped on or before Saturday
https://lychansubscribe.etsy.com/listing/4536396559
Let me know if anyone has ideas for cool custom shelf designs! Preferably ones that fit into the 5 tier format (but I'm open to anything)
