Chris Collins

Tools · fabrication

Box and enclosure maker

Finger-jointed laser/CNC boxes with kerf compensation, dividers, and eight lids — including living, knuckle, side-pivot, and bought hinges with magnet catches — nested onto sheets as SVG or DXF; and 3D-printable enclosures with PCB standoffs, connector cut-outs, and a snap, friction, screw, or hinged lid (print-in-place, snap-fit, filament pin, flexure) as STL — with a 3D preview that opens the lid and flags collisions.

Added · updated 30 October 2026

Works with

How to use it

Two generators share a 3D preview. Choose mm or inches at the top; files export in the same units.

Laser / CNC box

  • Enter the width, depth, and height as outer or inner dimensions, the material thickness, the kerf, and a target finger width. Each edge gets an odd number of fingers close to that width so the corners come out the same on both sides of the joint.

  • Lid — closed (fingered top), open, lift-off (a plate plus a smaller lip plate glued underneath), sliding (a slot in one end and rails on the front and back), or one of four hinged lids, set up in the Hinge panel:

    • Living hinge — the back, a band of cuts, and the lid are one piece that bends a quarter turn around the bend radius. Choose the lattice: straight (rows in line — stiffest), staggered, wave, or honeycomb (most flexible). Leave cut length, bridge, and row pitch blank and they are worked out from the thickness and radius; the panel shows the smallest radius the lattice will take and warns when you ask for less.

    • Knuckle pin hinge — the box is cut into a body and a shallow lid (lid depth). The back’s cut line becomes interleaved knuckles, alternately box and lid, with a gap between them; drill along the hinge line through all of them for the pin (dowel, rod, nail, or filament). The facing part is relieved so the square knuckle ends swing clear, and the lid stops when its back meets the box back (about 115° with the least relief); tick Lid stop to choose a later angle and the relief is deepened to suit.

    • Side-pivot lid — the lid sits between the end walls and turns on two pins through them, into cheeks glued under the lid. A fixed strip covers the gap behind the lid and is what the lid rests against; Lid stop moves the pivot forward so it rests at the angle you give.

    • Bought hinges — the box is split as for knuckles and the hinges go on the outside of the back: brass box hinges, butt hinges, piano (continuous) hinge, barrel (invisible) hinges, or a custom size. They are placed one hinge length in from each end (three past 450 mm; barrels three diameters in), and the back gets screw through-holes for the laser, engraved pilot marks, or pocket outlines for a CNC to recess the leaves. Barrel hinges get drill marks on the cut line.

    • Magnetic catch (any hinged lid) adds four small blocks with press-fit holes: two glued inside the front corners of the box and two under the lid, meeting when it is closed.

  • Open the lid — the slider under the preview swings the lid. Past the angle where it would hit the box the lid turns red and the panel says which part collides.

  • Dividers run front to back, with tabs into slots in the front, back, and bottom.

  • Kerf — every outline grows by half the kerf and every slot shrinks by it, so parts come out at their nominal size and the joints are snug. Cut a test corner first: measure the kerf with the laser test tool (/tools/laser-test/).

  • Parts are packed onto sheets of the size you give — hinge parts, cheeks, strips, and magnet blocks included. Download each sheet as SVG (red = cut, blue = engraving: labels and drill marks, green = pocket outlines) or as DXF R12 (layers CUT, MARKS, POCKET, and LABELS) for CAM software. Nest these parts sends the cut outlines only.

3D-print enclosure

  • Enter the PCB size and its mounting holes (x, y from the board’s lower-left corner — the default is an Arduino Uno), the clearance around the board, the wall and floor thickness, and the inside height.

  • Standoffs take an M3 self-tapping screw with a 2.5 mm pilot hole; tick floor through-holes to screw from below instead.

  • Cut-outs — USB-C, Micro-USB, USB-A, DC jack, RJ45, SD, LEDs, switches, buttons, or a custom rectangle or circle, on any wall. Position is the centre along the wall from its left end as seen from outside, and the height above the floor.

  • Lid — a friction lip, a lip with snap bumps, or screw bosses in the corners with matching clearance holes in the lid. The lid is laid out upside down for printing.

  • Hinge — instead of a loose lid, hinge it along the back:

    • Print-in-place pin — printed in one piece, closed. The pin belongs to the base; the radial gap (¾ of the nozzle, at least 0.3 mm, plus half a layer for sag), the gap between knuckles (the nozzle width), and the lid’s 2-layer float over the walls follow the nozzle and layer height you give.

    • Snap-fit pins — the lid knuckles are C-clips that snap down over pins on the base.

    • Filament pin — both sets of knuckles have a 1.95 mm hole for a length of 1.75 mm filament.

    • Living hinge — a thin flexure in the back wall: thickness and length come from the material (PP 0.5 mm, PETG 0.6 mm), long enough that it bends 180° within the material’s strain limit.

    • Stop puts a tail on the lid knuckles and a block on the base that it meets at the angle you give; Detents add bumps that click into holes in the lid knuckles closed and open.

    • The lid keeps its lip, set back at the front and back so it doesn’t bind as it swings. The panel says how to orient each print.

  • Download the base and lid as binary STL, separately or together. With a print-in-place or living hinge, Download STL (one piece) is the file to print (the living hinge one lies on its back).

Limits

  • The collision check works on the box’s side section: it catches the lid hitting the back, the strip, or the stop, not lids hitting dividers or things inside.

  • The living-hinge minimum radius is an estimate from the twist of the bridges between cuts (shear strain of about 3 % for plywood and MDF). Acrylic is far less forgiving; cut a test strip.

  • Knuckle and side-pivot pins: the pin hole sits mid-thickness, so the pin must be well under the sheet thickness — 6 mm sheet takes a 3 mm dowel. Holes along an edge can’t be laser-cut; drill them after assembly (the side-pivot holes and cheek holes are cut).

  • Bought hinges are mounted on the outside of the back, not mortised into the top edges. Hinge sizes are typical; measure yours and use Custom size if they differ.

  • Printed hinges are a starting point — print a short test hinge with your printer’s settings first.

Joint fit depends on your material’s real thickness (measure it — 3 mm plywood is often 2.7–3.2 mm), the kerf, and your printer’s tolerances. Test-cut or test-print a corner before a full job.

Linking to an example

Links can be written by hand. Dimensions are in mm; add the tab after #: laser or print.

Parameter Meaning Example

units

mm or in

units=in

lid

closed, open, liftoff, sliding, hinged (living hinge), knuckle, pivot, bought

lid=knuckle

w, d, h, t

Laser box width, depth, height, and material thickness (mm)

w=200&d=120&h=90&t=6

dividers

Number of dividers

dividers=3

r

Living-hinge bend radius (mm)

r=8

pattern

Living-hinge lattice: straight, staggered, wave, honeycomb

pattern=wave

depth, pin

Lid depth of a split box, pin diameter (mm)

depth=25&pin=3

knuckles

Knuckle count (odd)

knuckles=7

stop, angle

Lid stop on or off, and its angle in degrees

stop=true&angle=110

hinge

Bought hinge: box-16, box-20, box-30, butt-25, butt-38, butt-50, piano-25, piano-32, barrel-5, barrel-8, barrel-10, custom

hinge=butt-25

fix

Bought-hinge fixing: holes, marks, pocket

fix=pocket

magnets

Magnetic catch

magnets=true

ph

Enclosure hinge: none, pip, snap, filament, living

ph=pip

pstop, pangle, detent

Enclosure hinge stop, its angle, and detents

pstop=true&pangle=100&detent=true

nozzle, layer

Nozzle and layer height for print-in-place clearances (mm)

nozzle=0.6&layer=0.3

material

Flexure material: pp, petg, pla

material=petg

example

One of the presets below; parameters given with it override the preset’s

example=tea-knuckle&knuckles=9

Presets:

example= Shows

jewellery-living

A 160 × 100 × 60 mm jewellery box in 3 mm ply with a wave-pattern living hinge and two dividers (open)

tea-knuckle

A tea box in 6 mm ply: seven knuckles on a 3 mm dowel, three dividers, and a lid that stops at 120° (open)

brass-hinge-box

A keepsake box with two 20 mm brass box hinges in CNC pockets and a magnetic catch (open)

pivot-pencil-box

A pencil box in 4 mm ply whose lid pivots on two 3 mm pins and rests at 100° (open)

pip-enclosure

An Arduino Uno enclosure printed in one piece with a print-in-place hinge, a stop at 110°, and detents (open)

filament-enclosure

An Arduino Uno enclosure whose lid hinges on 1.75 mm filament and stops at 100° (open)

living-enclosure

An Arduino Uno enclosure with a PP living hinge, printed on its back (open)

Sharing

Share link copies a URL that opens this tool exactly as you have it set up. It carries the whole box or enclosure design — dimensions, joints, lid, hinge, dividers, holes and cut-outs. Opening a link replaces your own saved settings for the tool; a Restore my settings button brings them back. To write a link by hand, use the parameters above — for example /tools/box-maker/?units=in or /tools/box-maker/?lid=knuckle&t=6&pin=3#laser.

Runs entirely in your browser; nothing you type leaves this page.