Unboxing - Mynt3d 3d pen

Unboxing - Mynt3d 3d pen

Because the pens are a new technology, units are faulty, and people get paid to review things it, is possible that my iPeson was faulty as a one-off experience. To be honest, with 27 4+ reviews and no 1 reviews on amazon, the odds are high. I did a bit more research, reading reviews sites, amazon reviews, etc.

I enjoyed the experience of opening the box. I am delighted to see the filament color combination. Black, Orange, Purple - Halloween colors! I also have a selection of left over rolls in PLA and ABS from my adventures in printing. I have 3 full rolls of blue/red/gray, because I couldn't get the calibrations figured out on my printer.

I have had some time to actually play around with my pen, without anything jamming or breaking. So that's exciting! So far this pen is amazing. The worst con it has is that it needs a power cord to run, and the power cord is a little short. I need to get an extension cord for it, because it is awkward to use.

Other than that, it is super simple to use, it is smaller/less bulky than the iPeson and is easier to write with. My hand doesn't tire like it did with the iPeson. I have doodled with both ABS and PLA and am having pretty good luck with extrusion speed and my hand speed. It needs a little bit of refining, but i am definitely getting the hang of it! You can double click the feed button to make it auto-feed, which is great. I need to develop the skill to turn it off again, without messing up my doodle.

All in all, this is the superior brand. Even the box was nicer! It was a heavy duty cardboard that snaps into place with a magnet. The artwork is better as well. It looks like they actually paid a designer to put time/effort into making it look nice. The iPeson's box looked like someone cutout pictures of some 3d pen artwork and slapped them haphazardly all over the board.

I have only one other, faulty-unit pen to compare this to, but it is going to fulfill all my needs. I will do a follow up review in a couple months, to see if I still feel the same down the road. After 3 days of use, I give it a 4.5/5 (-0.5 for super short cord.)

Unboxing - iPeson 3d Pen

Late Monday night I decided to splurge on myself, post-holidays. First I ordered a $40 pair of spider earrings from the Betsey Johnson collection, from Macy's.. The boyfriend wanted to buy them, but could buy two cool pairs of her earrings for the same price; I'm telling myself that he wanted to bury me in presents.

The second, topical purchase was this 3d pen from amazon.  Tuesday, as I started work I got a delivery - my 3d pen! Unfortunately I had to work, and couldn't tinker. When I took lunch, I used the pen to doodle on one of my previously made puzzle boxes.

The design came out. . okay I had to experiment with speeds and hand fatigue. I definitely need practice. Sadly, I won't be getting the chance to get that practice. On this particular unit while I pressed the unload button, which swaps colors of filament, the whole thing jammed. I followed the vague instructions; removing a couple screws to pop out the filament tube and pull the filament out, easy-peasy. However, when I put the whole thing back together, the LED screen screamed ERR.... ERR. none of the buttons changed anything, turning off and on again did nothing. I took it apart again to make sure everything was tight and in place - it appeared that way.

I contacted the company in the middle of the night who told me that basically they would send me a new nib if the nib was defective (didn't seem to be). Also - I should have pressed the unload button to get the filament out (I did, I can read basic instructions.) Otherwise, just send it back. So I put it back in the box, minus the 3-4 grams of filament i practiced with, and scheduled a pick up.

In the meantime, I ordered a Mynt3d. It should be here Friday, so I guess we will have a second  unboxing, with a different brand! and I can compare!  I have been on the fence about Lix Pen, but I see a lot of mixed reviews for them. I would love to try one, but the price tag is a little hefty in comparison to other pens. Too Expensive for something that has enough questionable reviews to make me wary.

I also have been busy printing! The same puzzle boxes from thingiverse, which I handed out at Christmas. They were a hit!  In this bottom picture, you can see a leftover box with my feeble attempt at a zentangle pattern on it, in purple.

Coming up soon - some seemingly successful designs for my Dixit BoardGame collection!

Broken Token advertisement.

Good morning!

As you know, I love boardgaming. Modern boardgames come with tons of cards, dice, & carcboard, plastic, and wooden pieces. When I started collecting the "cool" thing to do, or really most popular thing, was to store all the components in baggies. This is well and good when you have one or two types of tokens. But the more games I get, the more complicated everything is, and there are often 15+ separate components. This means the time it takes to set up and put away is longer, and often kind of messy. Does my old organized soul some harm to see all those pieces scattered everywhere and getting dropped off the table!

There are people that post these amazing foamcore custom inserts, with separate compartments for everything. They are amazing, but foamcore is the devil, and I have no skill or patience for it at all.

Then a few years ago a company popped up called The Broken Token. I love them! They laser cut sheets of 1/8" baltic birch wood and acrylic. You  pop them out of the thin sheets and assemble the neatly designed insert that fits the box perfectly. Of course they have a limited amount of games they have designs for, but their library is expanding all the time - The first time I shopped there, they only had a handful of game box designed, and now they have boxes for over 70 unique games.

The first Broken Token insert I bought was for my Dominion collection. I got a hell of a deal on the base set and the first 8 expansions, plus all the promo cards that were available at the time. Using 9 separate boxes is crazy, and there werent a lot of one-box solutions, so I bought a wooden artist case from Hobby Lobby and the Broken Token dominion insert, then, for dramatic flair, I woodburned the logo for the game and designed my name in matching font. The bummer of this is that I had to print and cut out all those dang dividers, it took forever. At the time, and to this day, the Hobby Lobby/Broken Token combo is the best storage solution. And there still isnt a reasonable/affordable solution for the inserts. I also made one for Nameless Roommate #1., who actually still has his, but hasn't put his collection in the box yet.

There's a lot of room to rearrange things and set it up how you want, which has pros and cons. it leaves room for expansions (or did when I bought mine, but there have been two full expansions since then.) On the other hand, a couple things are kind of awkwardly placed in the box, like coins and place holders. 9/10.. I would still buy it again, I feel like there is a bit of room for improvement.

The second broken token I purchased was for Dead of Winter by Plaid Hat Games. It fits snuggly in the box and perfectly accommodates all the pieces with compartments large enough to get your fingers in and pick up pieces unlike some of the alternatives, like Plano storage units. It also is perfect for game play, because set up is just taking some trays out of the box and choosing which scenario to play, instead of opening 50 baggies and dumping pieces all over the table. Perfect, 10/10, would buy again.

I inherited my third insert when I bought an old friend's Android Netrunner collection. it suits its purpose.. Adequate. Also I wish there was a better solution for all the tokens that came with it.. I have a 3d printer solution in the queue for my printer, but I don't play very often, so it's low priority. Honestly, I would give it a 5/10 for personal preference. There is enough give in the box that it allows the cards to slip under the dividers when the box is in motion/on its side. I would buy this, but only if I had bought all the inserts for my other games first, this might be on my list for "completionist" reasons.

Then Plaid Hat Games announced a sequel to Dead of Winter: Dead of Winter: The Long Night and it had even more pieces than the original! I contemplated buying the original DoW insert, but put it off for a bit. That's when they announced the Long Night specific design - which was great because it had a bunch of different things that needed to be sorted 4 different types of character/monster standees and 5 or 6 extra item types. 8/10 - there are a couple issues with how the stand up figures fit into their designated areas. I had to keep the cardboard separate from the plastic stands to make the trays fit flat. Also, there are some modules and I feel that there a couple extra card slots would have been nice for storage.

The only downside is that they *are* made out of wood, so it adds some weight to the box. The flip of that is that is adds sturdiness to the box. The newest insert used some acrylic for card dividers, I am not sure if that changes the weight or not. I do, however, wonder if there is a future in 100% acrylic inserts. I know I am working on printing a passable substitute for Eldritch Horror (which they don't support yet.)

So I have 100+ games and 4 broken token inserts, and an ever growing wish list as they release new ones. They are pretty fairly priced, the pinserts are in the $20-$30 range. I just have a lot of games to Token, and sometimes that is something I would rather spend on a discounted game. I have a pretty good wishlist going, and maybe when I'm rich I will review the rest of them :)

Catch Up Game Night! Jamaica, Broom Service, SellSwords & Lanterns

Last night we had a board game night. My roommate and I are both avid collectors of board games, and have extensive wishlists. Whenever a big sale comes up, I generally crunch numbers against my CamelCamelCamel.com report and if it comes to equal or lower than the lowest amazon price in history, I will buy. I also get CamelCamelCamel alerts whenever an item on my list drops below the lowest historic price. I have given myself a pass to buy any game on my list if it drops to a historic low. (this works for my budgets, but usually 5 or six will drop over the same weekend.) The down side of this is that I don't have time to play them all as soon as I get them, so they start accumulating.

Anyway, the short of it is that the two of us have limited time between my full time job, Australian schedule and two time-draining hobbies, and his schooling. The stack of unplayed games is growing. We finally had a 3-day weekend to catch up and play through some of the unplayed games. We got 4 down and still have many left - most of the games left are heavy, thematic games, that take 90 minutes just to read through the instructions.

Games we played include his copy of Jamaica, a pirate themed racing game. You have a hand of three cards that have two actions. The rotating roll of Captain is in charge for the round - in charge of rolling two dice and arranging the results into Day and Night. You then choose one of your cards and play it - using the two dice to tell you how to complete each action. You can store things in your hull, but only 5 sections. You use the items to pay for the spaces you land on. In two player mode we had to fight with a Ghost Ship, which balances out heavy leads. The Captain for each round takes turn controlling the ghost ship. We both enjoyed it, there wasn't a ton of direct combat in our game, but there is definitely a place for PvP or even PvE with the ghost ship.

I enjoyed it and would play again. I am pretty sure he liked it as well, as he stated he would more than likely be keeping it when he moves cross country next month. Just in personal preference of game play, I'd say a 7/10 not mind blowing, but decent. I liked the art and the figurines, the chits, the insert for the game itself was really good.

We also played Broom Service, from my collection. It is strategy based, and mildly frustrating (like when people try to chain together a bunch of actions, and end up messing it up for themselves and the other player, not to point fingers, Nameless Roommate #1...)

You play the part of a witch, using your connections to move between territories and deliver magic potions. Each territory is a terrain type like Hill, Mountain, Plains, Forest. You have a hand of 10 friend cards. These friends allow you to move to another terrain type(witches), deliver potions in that terrain type(Druids), or gather resources to create potions(gatherer). All players simultaneously choose 4 friends and play them face down. The first player reveals the first friend they chose and declare if they will be Brave or Cowardly. The trickiest mechanic is that each friend has a Brave action and a Cowardly action.. The Brave action lets you do more/have higher benefits, but only one person can use the Brave action of a character. The Cowardly action is a bit more limited, but everyone who played that friend can use the cowardly action.

Where it gets complicated is at this point - If I am first player and I reveal my Hill Witch, the brave action is that I can move to an adjacent hill and deliver a potion to a tower. The cowardly action is that I can move to the adjacent hill. I choose to be a Cowardly Hill Witch. I move to the adjacent hill. Nameless Roommate #1 also chooses Cowardly Hill Witch, and since I revealed mine, he reveals his before the next friend is revealed.  we each take our action. No big deal.

However if I choose to be a Brave Hill Witch, before I can take my action, if he has chosen Hill Witch, he must reveal that He is also a Brave Hill Witch, and takes my chance to use the ability at all.  So it's a game of trying to predict where your opponent is going next and taking a chance that they aren't going to the same area as you.

Where this becomes an issue is when you assess that your opponent doesn't have any open Mountain areas that they can do anything in, so you choose Brace Mountain Witch, so you can go to the adjacent mountain and deliver a potion. But your opponent has decided that even though they dont get to go first, once it becomes their turn, they are going to try to chain together a Plains and then go to the Mountain two spots away. Twice in a row, even though you clearly are trying to go to the adjacent mountains. And they act put out because you threw their chain off, so now they can't really go to the mountain they were trying to get to.

Overall I really liked it, but the opponent's strategy stressed me out. He's a better strategist than I am, so he had to know I would be trying to get into the mountain, so he had to have been blocking me. But he got all flustered and didn't know what to do when mountain came up as early as it did. So either he was playing me, or he wasn't considering my move at all, which I highly doubt.

For a kids-themed game, there was another layer of weird  betrayal underneath it.  I'd give the game another solid 7/10.

We also player his copy of Sellswords, which is basically a mini game straight from  Final Fantasy. 8/10 - Quick, replayable, fun, tricksy. Consists of two rounds  with two parts each. First you lay out 12 heroes with special abilities and numbers on their each edge, you take turns collecting these heroes into your hand. Second part you lay the heroes out  on the board. Every time you place a hero next to another hero, you compare the numbers on the edge. If the defending hero is an enemy, and they have a lower number than the new card, they are flipped and become part of your army, and so on, until the end, when you count points by how many of your army is in each row.

The other was Lanterns The Harvest Festival from my collection, a tile laying, resource management game. 8/10, quick, replayable, fun. You draw three tiles and match colors, collect cards and buy honor. Pretty each to learn, and Fun, Kind of reminds me of Carcassonne, but Festive.

The Bronze Age - Product Review

I bought some antique bronze filament from blackmagic3d on Amazon.. originally I intended to print a bust of Teddy Roosevelt for my aunt. however my first attempt of printing another project (my cursed deck box) waste 30% of my .5kg roll.

Of course I had to try reprinting it today because I want a bronze/gold deck box! so along with the successful(!!!!) print and the lid for that box, I've used .4kg. I an not sure I'll have enough for Teddy.  I would like a matching life counter, so I guess I will see how much filament Teddy will take up and if it's less than 100g I'll move forward. or else I'll print the life counter.

Wouldn't that be so neat to have a life counter to match my deck box?

To the review!

When I opened it, I was a little underwhelmed, but I liked this filament the second it started printing. I really enjoyed watching layer upon layer going down. I was worried it would look bad or blotchy, but just like the PLA I used in the past, this has gone down even and beautifully. The low percentage of infill I used caused a cool shadowwy ghosting of the details on my deck box. I wish there was a way to melt down and recycle my unused of wasted plastic so I could make more prints. I would love to buy another roll and print stuff that should be gold/bronze!

I am not sure if it is this specific PLA or happenstance, but i had the cleanest separation of raft from object so far - I may have evened out my attack method on it, but it could also be the PLA itself.

I recommend giving it a try if you have $20 and 500g of prints that need to be bronze!