kapy academy

Parametric Gridfinity baseplate

One 42 mm cell with the standard Gridfinity socket profile, repeated W × H by a pattern whose counts are parameters you declare as you type them. Six steps: a stepped cut, inline parameters, and the window where you change them afterwards.

6 steps

What it builds

  • Sketch
  • Extrude
  • Cut
  • Rectangular pattern

  1. Step 1

    Sketch one 42 mm cell

    Click Create sketch, then click the flat blue square lying on the grid — the XY plane. Open the rectangle menu and pick Rectangle (from center). Click the origin, then a corner, and make it 42 × 42 mm — type the sizes in the fields while you draw, or add a 42 mm dimension to two sides afterwards. 42 mm is the Gridfinity pitch, and everything else in the system counts on it.

  2. Step 2

    Extrude the cell 5 mm

    Press Finish Sketch, click inside the square to select it, then press Extrude and type 5 in Distance, then confirm with OK (or Enter). That is one plate cell: 4.65 mm of socket profile plus a 0.35 mm floor, which the last band of the next cut goes straight through.

  3. Step 3

    Sketch the socket outline on the top face

    Click the top face and press New sketch on face. From the rectangle menu pick Rounded rectangle: click two opposite corners of the face (the cursor snaps to the face's corners), then click a third time 4 mm away from any corner (along an edge is easiest): that distance becomes the corner radius. This rounded outline is the top of the socket a bin drops into.

  4. Step 4

    Cut the Gridfinity profile in one stepped cut

    Press Finish Sketch, click inside the rounded outline to select it and press Cut. Turn on Stepped profile and ignore Distance — the profile sets the depth. Each band is one stretch of the wall: Rise is how far down it goes, Offset how far the wall moves inwards over that stretch — both negative here, because you are cutting down and inwards. Type each offset in the Offset field inside its band, not in the Offset above the switch. Four bands: rise −2.15, offset −2.15 (the 45° chamfer the bin slides down), rise −1.8, offset 0 (the straight wall), rise −0.7, offset −0.7 (the lower chamfer) and rise −0.35, offset 0 through the floor, then confirm with OK. That is the socket every Gridfinity bin is shaped to sit in.

  5. Step 5

    Repeat the cell W × H — and declare the parameters as you type

    Double-click the cell to select the whole body — the pattern tools only appear for a body, not a face — and pick Rectangular pattern (3D). It invents no directions: Direction 1 opens already asking, so click one top edge of the cell, and Direction 2 asks next — click a top edge running the other way. Now set both spacings to 42, turn on Symmetric for both directions and One body. Then, instead of numbers, type W(2) in Count 1 and H(2) in Count 2: NAME(value) declares a parameter right there in the field, with that value, and binds the field to it. Confirm with OK. The plate is now driven by two parameters — and you did not open the Parameters window to declare them.

  6. Step 6

    Open the Parameters window and set W to 4

    Every parameter you declared inline lives in the Parameters window — hover the Parameters icon in the column at the right edge of the viewport. Change W from 2 to 4: the pattern re-reads Count 1 and the plate becomes four cells wide, socket profile and all. Any size of baseplate is now two numbers.

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