Concentrate Stand
- Thread starter BigMacZA
- Start date
Seedling trays. Does the same job at a fraction of the price. I got six of them for R100. It provides storage (one tray for base, another tray for the lid) for 384 bottles. The rack in your pic shows storage for 7x11 = 77 bottles.
@SamuraiTheVapor, I bought mine from a wholesaler called Damax situated near ORTIA in Joburg. I believe this is the exact model I bought:
https://damax.co.za/store/323/42/house-products/plant-pots-trays/germination-tray-128-cells-detail
I had to drive there to collect, it appears they now have online ordering from the "Add to Cart" button which I now see. I also see the price has risen a bit, they were R16 or so when I bought and are now R20. Still, compared to other storage solutions, they are dirt cheap.
There are probably similar seedling tray manufacturers/wholesalers in the CT area. I would just google "seedling trays Cape Town" and see what comes up. Hopefully you can find one closer to you.
https://damax.co.za/store/323/42/house-products/plant-pots-trays/germination-tray-128-cells-detail
I had to drive there to collect, it appears they now have online ordering from the "Add to Cart" button which I now see. I also see the price has risen a bit, they were R16 or so when I bought and are now R20. Still, compared to other storage solutions, they are dirt cheap.
There are probably similar seedling tray manufacturers/wholesalers in the CT area. I would just google "seedling trays Cape Town" and see what comes up. Hopefully you can find one closer to you.
You could try here @SamuraiTheVapor
https://hydroponic.co.za/hydroponics/seedling-trays/
or here but you have to buy a box. Maybe if enough people in close proximity are interested a box could work and price is good.
https://www.growrite.co.za/product/128-cavity-tray-standard-and-deep/
https://hydroponic.co.za/hydroponics/seedling-trays/
or here but you have to buy a box. Maybe if enough people in close proximity are interested a box could work and price is good.
https://www.growrite.co.za/product/128-cavity-tray-standard-and-deep/
The Growrite one seems an exact replica of the one I have. Not so sure about the Hydroponic ones, the compartments seem too wide and deep, the bottles will rattle around in them.
The 28mm diameter of the Growrite compartments is good. A 10ml HDPE dropper concentrate bottle is near as darnit 25mm diameter. So it would seem that you have 3mm clearance but you don't. The compartments slope inwards slightly from the top down. So the diameter at the bottom of the compartment is less than 25mm. The bottle rests almost at the bottom of the compartment but held in place by friction against the sides, not by resting flush on the bottom. It's not exact but it doesn't bother me, the system works well enough. You can also press down slightly on the bottle to 'seat' it firmly in the compartment but I haven't found that necessary.
The 28mm diameter of the Growrite compartments is good. A 10ml HDPE dropper concentrate bottle is near as darnit 25mm diameter. So it would seem that you have 3mm clearance but you don't. The compartments slope inwards slightly from the top down. So the diameter at the bottom of the compartment is less than 25mm. The bottle rests almost at the bottom of the compartment but held in place by friction against the sides, not by resting flush on the bottom. It's not exact but it doesn't bother me, the system works well enough. You can also press down slightly on the bottle to 'seat' it firmly in the compartment but I haven't found that necessary.
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If you do collect, I would strongly recommend taking a couple of concentrate bottles with you and trying them out in the tray before taking it. You will see immediately if it feels right and is going to be easy to use.
I am busy designing this:
Been working on it for a while now. It's a 6 tier case and each tier can hold 96 x 10ml bottles and 11 x 50ml bottles. It is 500mm x 500mm x 350mm with a handle and will have rubber feet underneath. It will have hinges between each of the parts at the back and latches at the front to keep it closed. It will be compact enough to store and when opened up, all the concentrate holders inside will be labelled by category and alphabetically. Might not be everyone's thing, but I'm definitely going to build this....soon.
The different colors are just to seperate the parts in the design. It will be made of wood and the concentrate holders inside will be 3D printed as well as the handle. I'll try to make it from pine so it'll be a bit lighter than using heavier wood.
It will always stand upright and the concentrates will not be exposed to light. It will be easy to take them out and put back and each flavor will have its own place and it will be easy to see which ones need replacing.
I'll probably never fill this up completely, but I'll also never run out of space for my concentrates
Been working on it for a while now. It's a 6 tier case and each tier can hold 96 x 10ml bottles and 11 x 50ml bottles. It is 500mm x 500mm x 350mm with a handle and will have rubber feet underneath. It will have hinges between each of the parts at the back and latches at the front to keep it closed. It will be compact enough to store and when opened up, all the concentrate holders inside will be labelled by category and alphabetically. Might not be everyone's thing, but I'm definitely going to build this....soon.
The different colors are just to seperate the parts in the design. It will be made of wood and the concentrate holders inside will be 3D printed as well as the handle. I'll try to make it from pine so it'll be a bit lighter than using heavier wood.
It will always stand upright and the concentrates will not be exposed to light. It will be easy to take them out and put back and each flavor will have its own place and it will be easy to see which ones need replacing.
I'll probably never fill this up completely, but I'll also never run out of space for my concentrates
Awesome stuff! I need a 3d printer in my life. Now that you have some experience, which would you recommend?I am busy designing this:
Been working on it for a while now. It's a 6 tier case and each tier can hold 96 x 10ml bottles and 11 x 50ml bottles. It is 500mm x 500mm x 350mm with a handle and will have rubber feet underneath. It will have hinges between each of the parts at the back and latches at the front to keep it closed. It will be compact enough to store and when opened up, all the concentrate holders inside will be labelled by category and alphabetically. Might not be everyone's thing, but I'm definitely going to build this....soon.
The different colors are just to seperate the parts in the design. It will be made of wood and the concentrate holders inside will be 3D printed as well as the handle. I'll try to make it from pine so it'll be a bit lighter than using heavier wood.
It will always stand upright and the concentrates will not be exposed to light. It will be easy to take them out and put back and each flavor will have its own place and it will be easy to see which ones need replacing.
I'll probably never fill this up completely, but I'll also never run out of space for my concentrates
Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2 (print area of 200mm x 200mm x 180mm) if you want to start a bit smaller
Wanhao Duplicator 9 (print area of 300mm x 300mm x 400mm) if you want larger.
I'm getting the D9 soon. I have the smaller one now. Very happy with its print quality. No fuss with it. You receive it half assembled and just need to put the main parts together, level the printing bed, load the filament and off you go. Slicer program I use is Simplify3D and my design program is 123D Design. It's free, but discontinued, but I still use it. It's very simple to use.
Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2.1 here
Wanhao Duplicator i3 Mini here (print area of 120mm x 135mm x 100mm)http://www.3dprintingstore.co.za/3d-printers-upgrades/wanhao-duplicator-i3-mini/
Wanhao D9 here
I have no experience with the Mini. The D9 and the i3 V2.1 works about the same way.
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I'll probably never fill this up completely, but I'll also never run out of space for my concentrates
That's what we all said, haha.
Seriously, though, that looks like a great design. If I can give you one tip from experience when alphabetising, it's this: give yourself headroom to expand. In the pic I posted in this thread, you can see that I have a bit of headroom for more concentrates in each letter. But the DE row is right next to the F row which is right next to the G row. At that point, I only had headroom for one more concentrate with F. So all it took was for me to order two more Funnel Cake/Fuji/French Vanilla and I then had to move e-v-e-r-y row down to make room for another F row. I learnt my lesson and re-sorted everything so that I now have an entire empty row spare for every letter of the alphabet. And even that is rapidly filling up. It's a never-ending task.
Thank you for the detailed response, much appreciated @zadiac.
Thanks for the info, but yes, I have been keeping it in mind and in my layout I've accounted for expansion as well
That looks awesome. Are you going to sell ready built cases, or share/sell the plan?I am busy designing this:
Been working on it for a while now. It's a 6 tier case and each tier can hold 96 x 10ml bottles and 11 x 50ml bottles. It is 500mm x 500mm x 350mm with a handle and will have rubber feet underneath. It will have hinges between each of the parts at the back and latches at the front to keep it closed. It will be compact enough to store and when opened up, all the concentrate holders inside will be labelled by category and alphabetically. Might not be everyone's thing, but I'm definitely going to build this....soon.
The different colors are just to seperate the parts in the design. It will be made of wood and the concentrate holders inside will be 3D printed as well as the handle. I'll try to make it from pine so it'll be a bit lighter than using heavier wood.
It will always stand upright and the concentrates will not be exposed to light. It will be easy to take them out and put back and each flavor will have its own place and it will be easy to see which ones need replacing.
I'll probably never fill this up completely, but I'll also never run out of space for my concentrates
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I'll share the plans and 3D models. I don't have the time or patience to make this commercially.....lol
I will split it into 3 categories:
Desserts
Fruits and Beverages (don't use many of those)
Tobaccos
Each category will have it's own alphabetical system and each holder will be labelled with it's own concentrate. I'm going to make some of the caps (I keep them) red, so when a concentrate gets low, I put the red cap on it so I can see when I do my next order which ones to order. It's simple and effective. I use the same system at work for all my different documents and templates. It's been working well for me for years
Cool idea on the caps, thanks for sharing.
I've often tinkered with the idea of splitting concentrates into various groups but have never found one that avoids overlap. I know some folks group their concentrates by recipe, which is fine if you only make three or four recipes and there's little overlap between them. But I make up to 50 recipes that have FA Meringue in them and I only have one bottle of Meringue. So which recipe pack/box do I put it in? Then I would have to make notes of where I left each popular flavouring.
I also considered putting all the custards together, all fruits, all bakeries, and so on. But then is Cookies & Cream a bakery or a cream? Is Lemon Meringue Pie a fruit or a bakery? And where do I put FA Breakfast Cereals, which has chocolate, dairy, cereal and fruit in it?
Eventually I decided on just straight alphabetical - and even that has problems. Is FA Cream Fresh/Fresh Cream under C or F? Is TFA Dairy/Milk under D or M? Is Shisha Vanilla under S or V? Eish but it's rof being a bit OCD.
I've often tinkered with the idea of splitting concentrates into various groups but have never found one that avoids overlap. I know some folks group their concentrates by recipe, which is fine if you only make three or four recipes and there's little overlap between them. But I make up to 50 recipes that have FA Meringue in them and I only have one bottle of Meringue. So which recipe pack/box do I put it in? Then I would have to make notes of where I left each popular flavouring.
I also considered putting all the custards together, all fruits, all bakeries, and so on. But then is Cookies & Cream a bakery or a cream? Is Lemon Meringue Pie a fruit or a bakery? And where do I put FA Breakfast Cereals, which has chocolate, dairy, cereal and fruit in it?
Eventually I decided on just straight alphabetical - and even that has problems. Is FA Cream Fresh/Fresh Cream under C or F? Is TFA Dairy/Milk under D or M? Is Shisha Vanilla under S or V? Eish but it's rof being a bit OCD.
I am busy designing this:
Been working on it for a while now. It's a 6 tier case and each tier can hold 96 x 10ml bottles and 11 x 50ml bottles. It is 500mm x 500mm x 350mm with a handle and will have rubber feet underneath. It will have hinges between each of the parts at the back and latches at the front to keep it closed. It will be compact enough to store and when opened up, all the concentrate holders inside will be labelled by category and alphabetically. Might not be everyone's thing, but I'm definitely going to build this....soon.
The different colors are just to seperate the parts in the design. It will be made of wood and the concentrate holders inside will be 3D printed as well as the handle. I'll try to make it from pine so it'll be a bit lighter than using heavier wood.
It will always stand upright and the concentrates will not be exposed to light. It will be easy to take them out and put back and each flavor will have its own place and it will be easy to see which ones need replacing.
I'll probably never fill this up completely, but I'll also never run out of space for my concentrates
Awesome!!!! I'll take one when it becomes available!!
Cool idea on the caps, thanks for sharing.
I've often tinkered with the idea of splitting concentrates into various groups but have never found one that avoids overlap. I know some folks group their concentrates by recipe, which is fine if you only make three or four recipes and there's little overlap between them. But I make up to 50 recipes that have FA Meringue in them and I only have one bottle of Meringue. So which recipe pack/box do I put it in? Then I would have to make notes of where I left each popular flavouring.
I also considered putting all the custards together, all fruits, all bakeries, and so on. But then is Cookies & Cream a bakery or a cream? Is Lemon Meringue Pie a fruit or a bakery? And where do I put FA Breakfast Cereals, which has chocolate, dairy, cereal and fruit in it?
Eventually I decided on just straight alphabetical - and even that has problems. Is FA Cream Fresh/Fresh Cream under C or F? Is TFA Dairy/Milk under D or M? Is Shisha Vanilla under S or V? Eish but it's rof being a bit OCD.
I've tried a few options and found straight alphabetical to be the easiest system for me. The only exception is sweeteners/additives and tobaccos.
I use tea boxes (as per pic below) which holds 108 concentrates each (9 concentrates per compartment x 12). Each compartment has a letter/s, ie A, B, C, etc. I have 7 of these. I have aligned the name to what it is called on ATF, ie Cream Fresh and not Fresh Cream as I use ATF exclusively. So if the bottle says Fresh Cream and ATF calls it Cream fresh, I store it under C as when I make the recipe and it calls for Cream Fresh, I may not remember that I kept in under F for Fresh cream but rather C for fresh cream...
I keep all the sweetner/menthols/additives in a separate box which is roughly split into 3 sections:
Sweeteners = marshmallow, meringue, sweetener, maple syrup, butterscotch, honey, etc
Menthol/coolant type flavours = mint, eucalyptus, WS23, creme de menthe, etc
Additives = AP, Vanillin, smooth, liquid amber, etc
I have another, smaller, box for all the tobacco concentrates as these (i believe) require their own pride of place.
This works very as the boxes stacks neatly out the way and is not an eyesore...
I recently bough some of these craft style superwood/plywood boxes form a local craft store. It works brilliantly and I use it for all my testers/samples:
those are very nice boxes @Rude Rudi - where did you get yours? is it possible to get them without having to drink all that tea?
I work in the industry, so I got them from work but they are not available to buy.
If you google, you can find unbranded ones - search for 'tea box with lid south africa' - you will see some local box manufacturers, etc who has similar ones available. You also get them (plain press wood) as craft shops - I saw them at the craft store at Lifestyle Garden Centre.
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