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.

Cosmic Encounters Updates

I have been busily printing, adjusting, scratching my head.

Like I've said, I don't have the expansions, So I'm not sure how great this solution will be. I have been printing out the pieces, just a little time consuming as my printer is too small to print more than one piece at a time, including the lids!

I also might need to find a different solution for the Alien cards. I can fit the holder on my bed, but once it starts closing the spaces on the top layer, everything starts falling apart and the print actually looks distorted., the plastic widens, and become loosely melted together. I did three attempts - the first attempt died when my power died. The second had the horrible issue with the layers, and the third I stopped when it started having the same issues, even though I slowed the speed.

I probably need to print it without the holes, or make the holes smaller. I have noticed that the Printrbot doesn't like fine detail when it's high up.

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 Cosmic Encounter insert part 3.

I think I figured some stuff out so that it will fit on the printer bed! Yay!

Back to the drawing Board on Cosmic Encounter

I somehow managed to mismeasure my box  I can't fit the player boxes on their sides like I thought, because I have about 4 less millimeters than I thought I did. I think I can make, basically 2x2x2 and it should still allow much room for tokens.. though I will probably need to remeasure everything to make sure it will fit in my slightly smaller box.

Here are the pictures of my successful print that utterly failed.

I commit seppuku now.

Sketchup: Cosmic Encounters

I have had some time to start review, revising and transcribing my designs from my clipboard of graph paper to Google Sketchup I am a little worried because I only have the base game, no expansions. I looked up the card pieces so that I could plan out how much empty space to leave for each card type (squeezing them in with sleeves, because you kooky boardgamers love sleeving your cards!) I actually had to use a mixture of boardgamegeek and the PDF copies of the rules that come with every expansion, as they give a perfect breakdown of all of the content included in each set.

In order to fit all the cards with sleeves from the base game + six expansions on my printer, I had to cut the biggest card section (for flare cards) into their own print. I can still fit them onto the printer side by side, just not length wise. I have one of the smaller printers, so hopefully it works for the folks on thingiverse.

I also design a large holder for the alien cards, based on ZekTheMad's large card holder on the Eldritch Horror project I printed earlier in the month.. I did all the measurements myself, just based on his.. I liked the look of the rounded slots.

With the expansions, two should be just perfect. they will fit in the box with some space to place the randomly sized cardboard pieces on top

I decided that the best way to store all 8 sets of player pieces would be to make a lipped box and store them on their side.  I need to print one of them and test it with the player pieces, since the inside is just enough to fit the round planets. The rest of the box should be good though, more than enough space to fit all the ships as well as those planets, if the planets fit.

In the remaining space, in the corner at the end of the cards, I designed a generic token tray with a lid. It should fit 2 trays on top of each other.

Now, this said - I have no flipping idea if this will be enough storage space for all of the tokens and extra cardboard cutouts that came with the expansions. I may test my prints on Nameless Roommate #1's copy, as he has all but one expansion. I feel that this will give me a good enough feeling for what will fit.

My next step is to print out the files (I am still just waiting on the some plastic, my shipment from push plastics is est. delivery date of 12-6 (omg, wtf, amazon has ruined me) So when a CamelCamelCamel alert came up for Dixit Quest, I added some cheap PLA to the order. It should be here today, so I just need to export my sketchup files to the right format(.stl), and prepare my bed for printing. Hopefully I will have some kind of picture of a printed item to show everyone tomorrow.

Cross your fingers!

Unboxing: MTG Planechase Anthology

 I was excited as hell to hear about this years Magic the Gathering Planechase Anthology. I decided to do a quick unboxing post..

I generally don't get super excited over anything, but I enjoy the planechase card, and in comparison to how much they cost on ebay, this is a steal!

I don't have a lot of text to go with it, so here are a bunch of images. The original special box that the anthologies come in, containing four premade decks. Each deck comes in a pretty cardboard box with art of the main legendary included in each deck. There are 4 20 sided dice in colors coordinated with the deck box art.

Let me know what tweaks you are making to your preconstructed decks!