Designs & Dungeons & Dragons

As I like to joke when doing math, science, political and basic common sense assessments - I have an art degree. (technically.. It's only a 2 year/Associates of ARTS, but whatever, it counts) That said, I have been putting my skills to use for my dungeoneering adventures.

Most recently I have created a battlesheet for all my spells/powers, abilities and armor. (I know we have character sheets, but this is 100x easier for my brain to process) I was planning on using InDesign but got frustrated with some settings and ended up using my old friend Photoshop.

Sidenote: I recognize the goofiness in taking a picture instead of just saving a jpg from photoshop, but that would require effort, and my phone was super handy. Plus you get to see my notes and stuff.

I am in the process of swapping from a scattered/mostly melee attacker to a mid-range leader/controller style. I have been swapping my melee for Ranged and burst attacks. This will allow my passive buffs (like Virtue of Valor) to hit the longer ranged Sorcerer and Ranger, and the melee Barbarian and Paladin. Especially since I am a tiny-bit squishy, so I need to stay out of melee range at best.

I used Photoshop to arrange all my Powers/Spells, rituals, bonuses, languages and other abilities. I also added an area for my weapons and armor, so I dont have to dig that sheet out for reminders. There is ample space around the margins for notes (my reminder to self that I need to pick up ranged weapons and an implement, since I started swapping melee for Ranged powers mid-dungeon..)

I have color coded for Heals, Movement and Damage. So if someone needs to be healed, I can skim my page to see what I have open. I also have the action type color coded, so Standard/Minor/Immediate-interrupt, so I can remember to use my minor actions each turn if needed, and if stuff happens (missed hits or bloodying/killing) I can look at the yellows and see if anything triggers.

On top of this, I have downloaded a flashcard app, so I can study my spells in my downtime - I have such a hard time remembering what I need to do. I should probably set up another set of cards with "this is the situation, what spell should you use" so I can get quicker. I just started using the cards between Session 3 and 4, and I already have noticed a difference in performance speed.

I can go with the flow, don't say it doesn't matter anymore.

One of the better things about having my own printer is that I can switch gears, and make neat stuff that I find. With Christmas coming up, and my Nameless Roommate #1 leaving, cross country to be with his Texan Lady Love, we have a very low spending limit for the holiday. Since his birthday is a month after Christmas, and he will be gone, I am buying him something small for under the tree, and then wanted to give him some cash money (above our limit, because + birthday) (Sorry if you read my blog, Nameless Roommate #1, spoilers!)

I didn't want to just give him a crispy Hundo, because while that is my ultimate favorite gift to give, it's harder to spend and he will probably be stopping at places like restaurants or gas stations, where that is cumbersome. Also, I love the idea of opening lots of presents Christmas morning, because I'm basically a 5 year old.

I considered breaking it into 1s and 5s and individually wrapping it. However, that is a lot of work and would be frustrating/hilarious Christmas morning. I am not sure if he would find it as hilarious as I would. I havent really made much for him, outside of a tiny dickbutt and a life counter for Magic, which he no longer plays. So when I hit a wall with my Cosmic Encounters project, I thought. . maybe I could print him a nifty gift box? I have seem some beautiful gift boxes on thingiverse and I have a couple colors coming. . someday. . from Push Plastics, So I can make him a non-black box. (most of my prints are in black if you havent noticed.)

But thats kind of boring, and I know he hates having extra junk around the house, plus with a giant move coming. Long story short (too late!) I decided on a puzzle box. After browsing what was already available on the web, I found  This Cool Labyrinth Gift Box by Sneakypoo on thingiverse.

I read the comments, most people LOVED it, but recommended to print the lid just a fraction larger than designed, as the fit was so tight some people had issues getting it to fit at all. I started with the inside, that has the maze on it. I wanted to make sure it would look good when printed.

However, as you can see, I had some issues with the first attempt. Maybe related to my cosmic encounter fail from earlier in the week, I am seeing a lot of unclean lines and bubbling/zits, etc once the print reaches a certain height. Google led me to Reddit and Printrbot Forums, which told me that I am probably overextruding. PLA should usually be around 90% flow. I had it at 100% flow.

The second print I used 90% flow and had a much better result. I may try one more at 87%, because the very tip-top is a little messier than I would like. Plus having a couple of these lying around couldn't hurt.

I will post some more images when I get the top printed too. I am a little worried that I will put it on and won't be able to open it again, even though I know the pattern and have multiple copies of the same puzzle.

Mo printin, mo problems

I had a small issue with a very thin piece for cosmic encounter. I had some rounded holes cut out, when it was closing off on the top, there we
re connection issues - I think it was printing too fast.

I might also need to make the walls thicker than 1mm, because the brittleness of those middle pieces has causes snapping issues. Also - you can see the horrible print quality after the circles closed off.

Designing an Insert: Stage 1

Hey guys! While I am out of PLA, impatiently awaiting my refill, I decided to sit down and start mocking up a design, so I have something to print when it gets here.I sat down with some graph paper, calipers, pencils, rulers and a couple boxes of games I have issues sorting/ storing/ setting up. 

The first game on the list was Dixit, one of my favorite party games. The issue I have with this game box is that it only accomodates the base plus 3 expansions as it is.  The cards are too large to sit on their side, so I will have to put them at an angle. The hardest part was holding the cards in place while I calculated angles. I had to take into account that the board still needs to fit in the box and there are player pieces. The original design for storing pieces is good. instead of having it 2x3, I thought it out and figured that it could go 1x6 and fit perfectly in the negative space. This drawing, of course, shows none of that - just some degree and measurement notes - I did get around to drawing it all out to work out my thoughts and keep them fresh.

The second game I started designs for was Cosmic Encounter. I don't have the expansions, but I looked into how many pieces each one added - Hopefully the design leaves enough space to add all of those in perfectly. most of it was adding extra players, which are easy to count, and extra cards, hopefully the card area is big enough for that. The alien cards, with all 6(?) expansion will triple the big card height. I am hoping a lot of the extra stuff they add will fit into the two MISC areas I had left over. Most of this was super easy, just squares, no angles, making sure the pieces will fit into smaller boxes an

For now all I have are a couple hand sketches, but my next step will be translating them into sketchup designs. (and uploading my first all-original designs to thingiverse!) Hopefully my next post will have some peeks at what I have mocked up.

She's got a ticket to ride, but she don't care.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today I have some random garbage I have been working on, no finished project, just a little insight into my work process, which is kind of wasteful.

I have been looking into a storage solution for ticket to ride that fits for me. I have taken out and done who-knows-what with the original insert, so I need to make this work in a barely structured box space.  I also need to find(but haven't yet) a good solution for my cards (and I have 1910, so they are all full sized.)

For some reason all of the storage solutions I found pre-designed are weird. None of the lids snap or slide into place. This feels like it's a great way to end up needing to sort all your trains every time you want to play.

I can't find the source for the first box I had - it has been in my "to print" folder for a while, and of course I didnt save anything to attribute - but I didn't design it, if you did, give me a holler and i'll throw the link up.

the breakdown of what you are seeing:

Green & blue are in a simple design from thingiverse.. had to rubber band the lid to the body. I had an issue printing the lid and ended up needing to carve/cut up the lid to make it fit. I also adjusted the lip a bit so the lid would sink down into the box. But it has to be rubber-banded closed, which I hate. And you have to set the trains in just right (at least for the american map.) While I don't mind this, I know a lot of my friends and playgroups would hate this.

Yellow is in a second original design from thingiverse, designed by Nicofr57. I didn't like the relationship between the lid and body so i started changing stuff. The original design was made to allow you to keep the original insert for TTR:Europe. You should set the body in the cup, place the oversized lid on top, and then use a spacer to hold it in place and stack another body on top.

 Since I also have TTR:USA, and have lost the insert for it, i needed a slightly enhanced storage solution.


Black is modification no.1 from Nicofr57's design, All I did was raise the outer edge 3mm and in Cura set the width/height to fit inside the outer rim (66mm x 95mm) This is good and looks great when the bin is full and the lid is on. However, this didn't really solve my "trains all over the place when transported" issue, without rubberbands.

Red is in modification no.2 This is my favorite so far. I lifted the outer rim another 1mm and then pulled that 1mm out so that it would form a lip on 3 sides. I then lowered the front side to match the original height, that was preserved by the inner divider. The only issue I am having here is that it is a little tight. I think I can just make the change in Cura on the lid (make it half a millimeter thinner and take a millimeter off the width. I also added 3 mm to the length to create an overhang to give the player something to hold onto to yank that lid out.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with modification no.2, and once I get a Filament refil, I will be printing two sets  - one for TTR:Europe and one for TTR: USA

A cause for calibration - or - Success! Codenames

I am going to spend the day calibrating, after a "success" but the successful print didn't work as intended. So I am going to use some calibration tools and document that, inc. tomorrow or maybe Wednesday.

In the meantime, here was an actual success! An organizer for the games Codenames. I had to use sketchup to edit it a littl bit, removing 2mm from each end do it would fit on my printer.  The original size would have fit perfectly the other orientation in the box, but this way, the hourglass holds it in place perfectly.

If it Fits, I prints

A quick write up of my experience with printing the Eldritch Horror insert. Two of the larger pieces didn't fit. (sad face)  I covered this a bit in the last post, but I thought I would include more images.

Here I have a screenshot of my Cura(splicing software that sends prints to printer) and one of the two pieces that was too big for my printer. The blue checked area is representative of the area my printer can handle. When an item will not fit on the printer, it turns gray. As you can see in the above image, this image overhangs, but only on one axis, which is pretty easy to fix.

I imported the .STL file into Google Sketchup and cut the last compartment off the storage unit. As you can see below, the newly sliced piece fits both pieces on the bed, so I was still able to print it all at once.

After I printed the two smaller pieces, I used tacky glue to connect them!  It's not 100% aesthetically pleasing, but it works, and the glue is actually strong enough to pick it up by either side and it will not fall apart.

Printer Scaping

So I started a print and noticed more rattling than normal (rattling is not normal, but I keep tools on the table so they jiggle and shake and clink.) I work from home for my 9-5 (or more like 2pm-11pm) and stop getting calls at 6pm, so I set my printer to print while I am working (it's in my general home office area.)

I started noticing the rattle and then noticed this screw poking out on the arm. Of course it is one of two screws holding the grooved belt in place - the one that allows the arm to move forward and back. Miraculously, there was no slippage on the print on that axis.

About half an hour later I hear another rattle/grindy sound and look at the print, a screw on the bed's belt has also come loose, but this time there was some definite slippage. I had to scrap the whole print and didn't have time to set up a new one, as I was actually working.

The moral of the story is to do bolt checks more often. The more printing you are doing, and especially high speed printing, the bits and bobs rattle loose. This print, I only lost 30-40 minutes, but I would have been mad if it had been a longer print. It was just an alternate train holder for Ticket To Ride, I have three of the other kind, so I just wanted to test it.

Here's a pic of the slippage. Kind of hard to tell with the black on black... but in the upper left corner, you can see the raft, and then the printed part starts. The shiny triangle on the left and the strings on the right are where the toothy belt failed for a bout 3/4 inch and the print shifted to the right.

TL;DR: PSA - Remember to just give a quick twist to your screws.

An exercise in rafts

Lately I've been having issues with my raft. I have had luck with a couple - they peel away from the main print easily and leave barely any stress marks. However more and more frequently I seem to be having issues with the raft sticking to the print.

Google has informed me that maybe I need to experiment with my raft settings. Probably the Airgap. Cura has two airgap settings, so that's not frustrating.. I think this issue stems from having a messy raft. Sometimes when pla is being melted it gets a little stringy or at the beginning the bed and extruder heat at different rates and the extruder ends up at full heat before the bed is ready to go. This means that a little plastic is melting out of the extruder, not too much but enough to leave strings or a clump. Before printing the z-axis lowers and touches the bed and then lift's a little and pulls. That is meant to grab whatever plastic has been oozing out of the extruder.

However it's not a perfect system and sometimes strands get stuck in the first layer of the print and then they get pulled around which causes the raft to be imperfect. When the raft is imperfect the first layer of the main print can get entangled with the plastic from the raft. I think this is what is causing the difficulty in separation of raft from print.

My experiments tonight have been printing some cases for the Trains in Ticket To Ride. I got the file from Thingiverse, thought I am not sure I will end up using this in my set. The lid doesnt seem to stay on properly, and I found some matchbox style alternatives I might use, but  for now it's good enough to test.

As you can see from the above pictures, I had some difficulty with the first layers of the print while using a larger airgap on the raft settings. the gray, gross result is actually because i cut most of the first layer off and then sanded it down. It looks 10x better, but still not even half as good as the second print with only a .15 gap.

I am printing again with the same airgap, but 90% initial layers instead of the 115% it was set at on the second print. I also adjusted the surface layer thickness from .2 to .5, so we'll see what this does!

Good thing I ordered another roll of black PLA
 

Does that make me crazy? Maybe I'm crazy?. . . Probably.

At 8pm  last night I started a print that would prove that batching my pieces is smart. Of course the print would be just under 10 hours, which put the end time around 6am. This doesn't always make for the most restful sleep, but the process would be amazing if it worked.

The project is an insert for a new game Lanterns: the Harvest Festival designed by Tejawood. The current insert was cardboard and just had two slots to put everything, and required a couple plastic baggies....I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I have come to hate plastic baggies when it comes to sorting board game pieces - it adds so much time to set up and clean up times. The files i downloaded were set up so that all the pieces would print on my 6" bed. I decide - why not? might as well try to get them all printed at once.

The PROs of doing it this way are to save a bit of time and bed prep(time + materials) and to set up 4 pieces to print all at once. I would lose the most time between prints. I would have to peel the piece from the bed, make sure the bed is good to print again, and set up the new file in my printer. While it isnt a ton of time missed, i would have to be hovering around my printer, waiting to finish one print and start the next, that time would be lost while I slept. this way, i can set them all up and print all four pieces together

The major CON is that if it fails 4 hours in, I am out 4 half pieces, when I probably would have been able to print 1 or 2 fully completed pieces. I have tried batched before, and they usually fail, mostly due to print material or issues with the filament feed, or bed temperature. One by one I am trying to correct all the small issues I have, so a 9 hours batch print isn't that bad.. especially when I have completed long prints before.. its usually the batches that mess up though

This project actually worked! I woke up in the night and heard the printer finishing (the engines sound different because it lifts the extruder several millimeters and moves it to the home position for the x & y axis. I almost couldn't fall back asleep - i was like a kid at Christmas, wanting to check on how it turned out.

I noticed while it was laying the raft, that the filament was a little strange, and before I went to bed, I thought I noticed some peeling from the bed, but I am excited to announce that it actually printed and worked out! I had some issues with the raft removal, it was kind of loose for some reason and took some effort to remove. Good thing I have sandpaper!

I posted a couple pictures of the rough raft bottoms, but look at how great it looks in the lanterns box!

Now I just need to start designing my own inserts!

Let it go. . Let it gooooo

Last night I printed a piece from the eldritch horror and it came out beautifully. I print using "rafts." Basically a raft will print out a couple layers of pla and the print the piece on top of that. The raft is supposed to peel away from the piece easily.

However, this is not usually how it happens. I end up pulling out the bladed tools and using too much force, slipping and cutting myself.  (No joke, I have many scars on my thumbs and pointer fingers from stabbing it with the blade items.) I have been playing around with the settings for my raft. In the program I use, I have it set to set down a wide base, do a quick layer to fill in some space, and then do one full, normal row of filament It is flexible, but strong, and doing it this way helps the bottom of the print look smooth... when it doesn't stick, that is.

Last night, however,  this piece peeled off almost perfectly. there was one snafu in the corner, but dispatched easily. The post got some attention on instagram, so there are other people out there who feel my pain.

In the picture to the right, all that gray junk in the upper right corner is from my chiseling hack job. I guess it is better to have less. the top is mostly missing layer or two.