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Sliding drawer with the corner supports to locate the laptop

I moved into a new place in September and got a new desk. It isn’t as large as my old desk, so I’ve felt a little cramped working on it (homework, projects, assignments, “actual work”, etc.)

I bought myself a USB-C docking station last Christmas, and it’s been great, I love it. I can plop my laptop on the desk, connect the cable, and start working on my monitors and keyboard. The problem is that my laptop sits askew on my desk, unopened, taking up valuable real estate.

I decided to make a drawer that could hold my laptop and connect my docking station. I bought the wood and rails from Home Depot, and well as a piece of venire to match the desk as best I could. I screwed it all together, eyeballed everything, and surprisingly, it kinda worked.

I then 3D printed some corner supports to locate the laptop in the same x-y spot every time, as well as an adaptor support to hold the docking connector in the correct spot for mating. I cut the adaptor in half before printing so that the 3D print encapsulates the adaptor (see picture). The 90 degree adaptor is from amazon. Cost under $10 for two of them. The great part about using the adaptors is that the cable can be removed anytime, and I don’t need to destroy a cable for this project.

I affixed the drawer to the bottom of my desk with guerrilla double sided tape. I used tape because the desk is probably honeycomb cardboard inside, and I knew screwing/drilling into it would have been a mistake.

Here’s the link to the thingverse files (I have to wait 24 hours before thingverse will allow me to publish my first post. I’ll link them once it’s live) if anyone else wants to do the same. Please let me know if you build one, or something similar, I would love to see the improvements people make.

Here are the rest of the pics:

Holds the 90 degree adaptor in the correct spot to dock.

Drawer removed to show the four corner supports.

Laptop in the drawer, docked, and working great.

I feel like I have my desk back!

Picture for comparison. Previously the laptop had to sit skewed on the desk in order to connect to the dock between the monitors.