Polypanel System Tweak

myminifactory

This is a slight tweak to Devin Montes' snap together Polypanels system which gives a few more possibilities in the types of panels which can be used and how they fit together. I have adapted most of the basic panels for this system (all the panel names include '2' in them to differentiate them between the standard panels) plus a couple of new ones. Since they are not compatible, I made adaptor panels 'half-adaptor/half-adaptor-B' to connect between this and the standard system. The basic type of snap connector is almost identical to the original except for the two sections of the connector being spaced further apart slightly. The overall panel dimensions are the same, but the two 'snaps' on each polypanel side are now spaced 6.65mm further apart than before. This gives a spacing of 22.5mm or half a panel width between the two 'snaps'. This gives the first new property that a panel can not only attach to a single panel on one side, but also to two panels. This essentially gives extra positions for panels inbetween the standard ones, like bricks on one layer spaced inbetween the layer below. However, this does require flipping the panel over, and can lead to difficulties in fitting other panels around it since the connector parity is flipped. Panels like the 'Half-flip' can be used to help connect between these flipped panels. Speaking of half-panels, they can now fit with the other panels more neatly and securely. 'Snaps' can be added to the middle of the short sides and now line up with snaps on adjacent panels. Taking this a step further, I was also able to make smaller quarter sized panels with a single 'snap' on each side and fit with all the other panels in this adapted system. This essentially doubles the 'resolution' of the square panels, allowing more intricate features. Another new panel I was able to design was the 'Square Double Centre Joint' panel. This is similar to the 'Centre Joint' panel I designed for the standard system (also included here), where an extra connector is included in the centre of the square polypanel. With the wider spacing between the snaps, this has allowed two center joints to be added to a single panel, hence double centre joint. Combined with the new half and small squares, this gives more options for reinforcement and smaller partitions within a square based polypanel structure. Another small benefit of this change is that the connectors resist bending a little more due to the greater distance between the connectors giving a larger footprint and more stability in a structure. It's probably too late to go changing the entire polypanels system (and not really worth it), but with this minor tweak to one dimension these nice extra features can be had. That said, if you want to make new panels for this system or alter standard ones, I have included the 'Just snaps' .stl and .step files to do that. It's actually even easier to adjust the original Fusion 360 model from Devin Montes (find it on the polypanel competition page). Simply move each half of the connector away from each other by 3.325mm (giving 6.65mm extra spacing total - see pictures), and then build the rest of the panel the same as before, simple as that! Everything else on the panel is identical.