Make a Custom Gridfinity Tray in 60 Seconds: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough

From Photo to Print-Ready Tray in Under a Minute

If you've ever tried to design a custom Gridfinity insert in Fusion 360 or Tinkercad, you know the workflow can eat an entire evening. Measure each tool. Sketch each pocket. Tweak tolerances. Export. Realize the bin sizes are off. Start over.

GridPilot collapses that whole loop into a single photo and three clicks. This walkthrough shows the exact path from snapping a picture of your tools to downloading a print-ready 3MF — start to finish in under 60 seconds.

What You Need Before You Start

Just two things:

• A phone, tablet, or laptop with a camera (or a photo you've already taken)
• The tools, parts, or items you want to organize, laid out flat

That's it. No CAD software, no measuring tape, no plugin to install. GridPilot runs in your browser at gridpilot.us.

Step 1: Lay Out Your Items and Take One Photo

Spread the items you want to organize on a flat surface — a workbench, a piece of cardboard, the floor, anything with reasonable contrast against your tools. The classic example: dump a socket set out and arrange the sockets in roughly the order you want them in your drawer.

Stand directly above the layout and take one top-down photo. Phone camera is fine. You don't need a tripod, you don't need perfect lighting, and you don't need to leave a ruler in the frame. The AI handles scale automatically based on the Gridfinity grid you choose later.

A few tips that improve results:

• Shoot in even daylight or under a bright overhead lamp — avoid hard side-shadows
• Leave a small gap (5–10mm) between items so the AI can detect their edges cleanly
• Use a background that contrasts with your items — a dark mat under shiny tools, a light surface under dark plastic

Step 2: Upload the Photo to GridPilot

Go to gridpilot.us/project/new and drag your photo onto the upload area. You can also tap to browse, or paste from clipboard if you copied the image. Most phone photos (HEIC, JPG, PNG) work without conversion.

The first time you upload, GridPilot asks two quick questions:

• Drawer or bin dimensions — the inside size of the space you want the tray to fit. This sets the overall footprint.
• Gridfinity unit size — the standard 42mm grid is selected by default. Change it only if you're using a non-standard system.

Hit "Generate" and the AI gets to work. It detects each item in your photo, fits a Gridfinity-aligned pocket around it, and snaps the whole layout to the grid so your tray prints in real Gridfinity units.

Step 3: Review the Layout and Download Your 3MF

Within a few seconds you'll see a 3D preview of your tray. Each pocket is sized to its detected item with a small clearance margin so things drop in and lift out cleanly. The base footprint snaps to whole Gridfinity units (1x1, 2x3, 4x5, etc.) so your tray clicks straight into any standard Gridfinity baseplate.

If something looks off — a pocket too tight, an item the AI grouped wrong, an empty slot you want to add — you can drag pockets around, resize them, or delete them right in the preview. No CAD experience needed; the controls work like rearranging icons on a phone home screen.

When you're happy, click "Download 3MF". The file is print-ready: open it in Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer, or Cura, slice with your normal Gridfinity profile, and send it to your printer.

What "60 Seconds" Actually Looks Like

Here's the realistic timing for a typical run, once you've laid your items out:

• 0:00 – 0:08 — open gridpilot.us, click "New Project", drop in your photo
• 0:08 – 0:15 — confirm drawer dimensions and grid size
• 0:15 – 0:35 — AI processes the photo and generates the layout
• 0:35 – 0:50 — quick review, drag-adjust if needed
• 0:50 – 0:60 — hit download, open in your slicer

From there you're on the printer's clock — but the design step is done.

Why This Beats Manual CAD for Custom Trays

For one-off organizers, manual CAD is overkill. The value of a custom Gridfinity tray is that it's shaped exactly for the items you have right now — sockets, allen keys, your specific calipers, the drill bit set you actually own. You don't need parametric flexibility for something you'll print once and use for years.

GridPilot is designed for that case: capture the layout you actually want, generate the geometry, print it. If you want to iterate, take a new photo and regenerate — usually faster than tweaking sketch dimensions in CAD.

Try It Yourself

Lay out the next set of tools you want to organize, take a photo, and walk through the three steps above. Most people get a working 3MF on their first try. The rest get one on their second after adjusting lighting or item spacing.

Start a new project on GridPilot →

Stuck on a specific photo or layout? Drop us a note from the site — we look at every example users send in.