Tag Archives: 3D Printing

Gaming Table for Gaming in Bed

Over the last several days, I’ve been printing a “gaming in bed” gaming table that uses the StageTop system I backed on kickstarter.  My goal was to build a table that I could use for gaming in bed, especially at a hotel when I’m on travel.  Overall, it’s been a fun project – there are some things that I liked/didn’t like, but at the end of the day, it was good.

Details and the breakdown after the jump. Continue reading Gaming Table for Gaming in Bed

The Filament Buffering Problem

I’ve been thinking about a 3d printer filament buffer for a while, but haven’t really made the time to actually solve this problem, mostly because my multi-material printing has, to date, been pretty minor.  That’s not to say I haven’t been using my MMU, only to say that so far my prints have primarily needed tens of tool changes rather than hundreds.  At this scale, my “non-buffer” buffering solution worked reasonably well.  I’ve only had one or two jams, and it wasn’t that big of a deal.  Well, I decided to try a “big” project, and printed some miniatures with soluble supports which resulted in 216 tool changes.  This, I found, is why the filament buffer exists. Continue reading The Filament Buffering Problem

Math on the Weekends

Among those who know me well, it’s likely no surprise that there are two things I really enjoy – solving problems and doing math.  So, when I find a problem that turns out to be just a math problem, solving it is really fun.  That’s what I did this weekend – I wanted to 3d print an addition to my 3d printer that would help my filament buffering problem, but the design required that I obey some obviously mathematical constraints. Continue reading Math on the Weekends

Designing a Special Tile – Part 2

Apparently, I’m quite good at taking a hiatus on a cliffhanger of a post.  I left off last time talking about customizing a Hexhog STL with runes to make a Warmahordes objective marker and all the little pieces of software and techniques I used to make that happen.  But, designing and printing the tile was only half of the equation; the other half is painting it up so that it looks nice.

Continue reading Designing a Special Tile – Part 2

Designing a Special Tile – Part 1

A while back, I talked about building a terrain table for miniature gaming using the Hexhog Tabletop system as a base.  One of my first design projects was to build objective zones for Warmachine and Hordes.  While there’s no reason you couldn’t set objective zone templates on a terrain space, I thought this was a cool opportunity to design something that fit a bit better with the overall ascetic.  Also, I latched on to the idea because it’s something that I could do with my existing tools – this is always a boon for me because there’s a ton of things I can’t do or am really bad at, and this is something that I could.

Continue reading Designing a Special Tile – Part 1

Prusa Multi-material Upgrade – Part 2

After a week of troubleshooting, I’ve finally gotten my printer back up and running again.  If you read my last post, you’ll remember that I upgraded my Prusa with the new MMU2S, and while building the upgrade itself wasn’t too bad, getting everything working again afterward didn’t go well.  I didn’t document the time I spent troubleshooting, taking things apart, and putting them back together, but I did document the original build, so here’s the image montage of that, then I’ll talk through the steps I took to get it all back working again.

Continue reading Prusa Multi-material Upgrade – Part 2

Prusa Multi-material Upgrade – Part 1

Over the weekend, I decided it was time to build my long-awaited multi-material upgrade for my Prusa 3d printer.  I had planned on ordering this way back in March, but the combination of my funds and other things I wanted to order at the same time being out of stock stayed my hand.  Still, after lots of different delays, I finally got around to ordering it and building it. Continue reading Prusa Multi-material Upgrade – Part 1

Building a Terrain Table

I’ve recently been backing a number of 3d printing kickstarters.  From 3d printable terrain (Hexhog Tabletops: Hinterland Hills, and Fantastic Plants and Rocks), to miscellaneous models (The Graveyard Collection and Pillars of Stone), all the way to full 3d printable games (Pocket Tactics, Chibi-tech SD, and Star Scrappers: Battledrill).  One of the things I’m most excited about though, is building a full terrain table – I want to have a modular terrain system that fits into the game vault of my gaming table. Continue reading Building a Terrain Table

Magnetized Titans

Though I built my Warhound and Reaver titans some time ago, and included magnets in the build, I was never really happy with how the magnetization turned out.  The magnets dangled out in the open, and, honestly, the number of times I had to reglue them was a bit of a pain.  This weekend, I got out all my measuring tools, fired up FreeCAD and my 3D printer, and decided I was going to do something about it.

Continue reading Magnetized Titans

Building a 3D Printer

A while back, I decided I was going to get a new 3D printer.  My old printer was becoming a bit long of the tooth, and there have been a lot of advancements in 3D printing technology in the last few (seven) years.  A good friend of mine was working at Aleph Objects / Lulzbot, and that gave me a lot of visibility into what was going on in the industry, and that convinced me it was again time to take the dive.  While I was initially investigating and looking into a Lulzbot Workhorse, I eventually decided on getting a Prusa i3 MK3S, the wrinkle was, I decided to get a Prusa kit, which meant I’d be building this one myself. Continue reading Building a 3D Printer