Funko Pop/Action Figure Display

My goal for this project was to make some sort of display or storage type shelving out of 3D printed PLA as well as wood to fit both on my desk as well as the floor to hold and show off my various collectables found throughout my room. I needed this to be modular and easily scalable to expand upon it and fit the desired sized wooden planks inside 3D printed brackets.

The 3D printed portion of this project will be the main component as the scale of this print as well as the size of the rectangular holes will determine the amount of space I have to work with storage wise. This is important because currently I have many different collections that I have displayed around my room and many of my most recently purchased ones have just ended up sitting on the floor in the corner of my room for months.

By constructing a shelf of some sort would allow me to not only reorganize my room but also to show off some of my more interesting and favorite figures instead of collecting dust on the floor.

1. 3D Printer
2. PLA Filament
3. Wooden Planks
4. Screws
5. Screw Driver
6. Hot Glue
7. Sandpaper

Upon consideration of my problem statement, I constructed 3 different design concepts shown in order from left to right, to solve my given problem.

Concept 1 was simply a fully 3d printed wall mounted shelf in which I can place either my Funko pops or other action figures that I have on them and save space from them being scattered across the floor. I wanted this to be a unique design from all the basic rectangular and flat pieces commonly found on amazon.

Concept 2 was a more intricate idea as I would buy acrylic Z platforms and insert them in the holes of a 3d support bracket which not only saves more room as it has 9 different spots to place things but also looks unique.

Concept 3 was again another shelf design; however, the scale would be larger, and I could better modulate and expand the given area in which I can place more and more items with the ability to print more supports and insert longer pieces of wood through them.

To choose a concept design, a decision matrix was constructed to figure out which concept fits my needs best and I scored it accordingly. The original "design" or solution was just putting my Funko pops on the floor which took up too much space and overall unpleasant to look at. Thus, out of the concepts I sketched up previously, the decision matrix pointed me to design my 3rd concept in which I have 3d printed supports with wood planks inserted in them.

My initial design above depicts the starting point of my shelving build process. I originally had the idea that wall mounting these shelves would be best for my situation as I already have many of my Funko pops mounted to the wall through similar means and it just stands out well with my wall setup as I have shown above. However, upon fully 3D printing out these wall mounted shelves as well as the supports to hold them, I realized that they were not only extremely tiny but also the fully black contrasted with the acrylic ones as well as the wall color did not look right with me.

Some things I tried doing was scaling up the supports so that I can size up the actual shelf, however, I came across the problem of warping my screw holes and that would have been catastrophic for my wall. I also thought about painting over the entire piece to match with the wall color more but that would not only take more time but also run the possibility of covering over the tiny screw holes and messing the aesthetic of it.

Overall, the initial iteration of this design was very poor quality, and it did not fit much of the requirements that I have previously alluded to as much of the modularity of this would have been to use super glue in order the attach 2 ends of a shelf and push it through the support brackets. Thus, I decided instead of trying to create an intricate wall mounted print that I already have, why don't I make something to place on a flat surface instead.

For my second iteration of this design, I went ahead and looked up some of the best supporting brackets to use from a 3D print and noticed that many of the ones online consisted of a repeating hexagon pattern. I decided to shift from a wall mounted design to instead placing this shelf somewhere flat like either on my desk or on top of my drawer where it is easily accessible and viewable when in my room. I began by searching online for various brackets and supporting pieces for shelves that had this hexagonal pattern and stumbled across something that perfectly fit my needs.

As shown, I managed to 3d print these supports by using an already available STL file of someone using these supports to create a platform to cover your hands when learning how to type while only needing to look at the screen. I thought this was an incredible idea and made sure to scale this building up to 150% so I can instead use this to not only place stuff on top of the platform but be able to utilize the empty space below as well to place items.

However, some problems with this iteration arose when the "feet" at the bottom of the design both snapped off from barely any pressure applied. This was clearly a problem as I merely put my hand and pushed down on the supports slightly to see how they sit and if it can't take a couple of pounds of force then it stood no chance to begin with. Upon discovering this problem, I went back to researching solutions while also trying to stick true to my choice of concept. This was when I stumbled across an interesting find which led me to my final iteration of my design and what I used to complete this shelf project.

For my final iteration I managed to come across another support bracket for a shelving type project but with no hexagons and smaller in scale. These supports were used to construct a spice rack to hold spices in the kitchen and I thought what if I could use it for something else instead. As shown, this support piece comes with 2 levels and when placing the wooden planks through the holes, I noticed I had much more room to work with as this design combined many of my previous ideas and iterations into a much more polished and useful product. Although the width is a little bit smaller, it still provides ample space to place all the items I want to place as there are 2 levels in which I can work with.

Not only does this fit my requirement to be modular but it also does not take up much room and I can choose to construct either a new piece entirely or just print out another 3D support and increase the size of the wood to expand horizontally. My previous problem of having the "feet" snap off was no longer as this base was a simple rectangle and the center of gravity of this piece was much more stable and able to be held up on its own without additional supporting pieces.

The construction of this shelf took a little bit more effort than expected as scaling the supporting bracket up caused me to print multiple times to get my wooden planks to fit tightly through them. I purchased two 0.5x1.5x36in planks as well as two 0.25x1.5x36in planks, cut them in half to use for both levels, placed them on top of each other to fit the slot, then screwed them in place through the top holes. I then sanded the ends as well as the surface and managed to complete the design and begin the testing phase to ensure it works and is sturdy enough.

After the completion of my build I went ahead and ran a couple evaluation tests in order to find out and confirm that this will indeed hold various sizes, weights, and shapes of items without the risk of breaking or falling over under the pressure.

I simply took as many of my Funko pops that I could fit and placed them on both levels of my shelf. I made sure to alternate the weight from all of it being on the top shelf first which should be about 5lbs, then moved it all down to the bottom shelf leaving the top open, then finally placed more to fill up both levels and was around 8-9lbs in total. Each test passed with flying colors and everything managed to still stay on the shelf without falling or cracking through.

A mishap that happened during the construction process was while drilling in the screws I overdid it and screwed a bit too far which in turned cracked the 3D printed support a little bit. It did not effect the overall build, however, problems may arise in the future given time to wear down and the crack my spread depending on how much weight I put on the bottom shelf.

Overall the performance of the shelf is as I expected and hoped. It held up under all the weight I planned on putting on it, it was not overly too big, it provided plenty of room to fit different items on, and it matches well with the colors of my room. All in all, the initial processes went smoothly and I believe that each of my iterations that I went through provided useful information on how to improve upon my concepts. By utilizing similar support brackets from other completely different builds, I managed to construct a unique shelf that fit my needs and wants while also helping me visualize and go through the entire design process from scratch.

The completed build of my Funko/Action figure display is shown here.

The cost analysis and materials to complete this build from start to finish are as follows:

1. 80g of PLA Filament- $2
2. 2 0.5x1.5x36in Wooden Planks- $6.54
3. 2 0.25x1.5x36in Wooden Planks- $5.14
4. Sandpaper- $3
5. 8 #6 Screws- $0.41
6. TOTAL- $17