I’ve custom designed a sled system in our BMW X5, built with 80/20, wood, steel slides, and linear bearings. Built using lasers, CNCs, and 3D printers, that fully pulls out, can hold up to eight short (<=437mm) Systainer M stacks (can also use XL) and a SYS-RB, provides 2” of storage for sheets up to 37”x60”, and has a hideaway T-Square. In addition, we have created bottom adapters and lid adapters for some popular folding Bigant crates, allowing them to perfectly integrate and lock into a Systainer stack, and a custom heavy duty side handle module that locks into a stack just like a Systainer M does.
We have spent the last 8 months traveling, and have been using Systainers not only as toolboxes but also as luggage, wheeling them in and out of hotels and maker spaces from coast to coast. The cleat system itself has also been a major draw for us - before we went all in, stuff slid everywhere, but with the cleat system and the sled system in the BMW, things never move. We even did a full 360 in a snowstorm on I-70 through the Rockies in January, hitting the guard rail twice - our SUV took some costly cosmetic damage, but we were able to drive away, neither of us had any injuries, and our Systainers didn’t move a single inch!
The current version of the sled (purposely given the horrible name “Ultra Sled”) was designed and created in the DFW area at Dallas Maker Space, which is an incredible place with great people. There we used their wood shop, machine shop, multiple car bays, multiple huge lasers, 3D printers, etc. The lid for the Bigant crates (which are 295x395 exactly like the Systainer M) was designed and created at Denhac, a maker space in Denver, using CNC and 3D printing.
The black box under the 237 XL and the two 237 Ms is custom as well, it has Systainer cleats on the top and the bottom and is 187mm in height - it’s used for more “deep” type storage.
The sled is multiple layers of laser cut wood stacked on top of 3/4” plywood, stained blue on the top layer, anti-cleats are 3D printed and inserted into the holes, and the whole platform is wrapped in melamine edge banding. There’s also a wide handle at the back that was routed out all the way through the platform, then lined internally with a custom made 3D insert.
Small pieces of 80/20 attached to the top of the back of the sled, with custom designed 80/20 inserts, 3D printed out of flexible TPU, that align with the slide holes on the side of the SYS-RB, keeping it in place and out of the way.
There’s a nice storage space underneath for larger, longer items - up to 37” wide, 60” long, and 2” tall - we use this for wood and plastic panels that we laser cut and CNC. With the bottom tailgate up - there’s nowhere for the wood stored underneath to slide, and we can access the systainers in the back without having to drop the bottom tailgate, which works awesome for tight parallel parking jobs.
Check out the full selection of Systainers at Systainer USA.
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