I’m creating a board game that has custom 3d pieces. I’d like to test out my print before I send it to the game manufacturer and also want to make demo sets. They need a huge tooling fee before they’ll do samples. There are app. 10 designs and no bigger than 45mm.
I’m not sure as to whether I should buy a starter printer or would the learning curve be so big that I should just have a POD company do it. I know blender really well but have never printed anything from a file. I was going to make the file from blender for the company too. Any thoughts? I think my SO and I would use it for other things, probably, maybe, if it’s not so complicated that I give up on it.
Thanks for any advice on this, I don’t know what direction to point on this and I have a ton of work to do already.
Edit: You guys are awesome. I went from totally lost to ordering the Neptune 3 Pro and it should be here next week. Thanks for everything and I hope it goes pretty smoothly, I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again.
I suppose as you are a builder ( a game designer it’s most probably is) it would be a great help to have a 3d printer at hand.
Bambu printers,
Elegoo neptune 4 series, Prusa mk3/4s are great ones to start with.
This is my first game with pieces like that, I probably should have mentioned that. Thanks for the suggestions on models, that Elegoo Neptune 4 series seems to be perfect in price range too since I think a POD would have cost about that much.
In fact Neptune 3 pro can be cheaper option. It would be slower to print but still create perfect prints. I do print with A Neptune 3 plus, a larger version of the 3 pro, and quite happy with it.
We were just looking at the differences. I wonder if we should spend the extra $100 to get the 4 pro in a couple of weeks or get the 3 pro while we’re still excited.
If your pieces are detailed I’d recommend a resin printer. I just got an anycubic photon mono x2 and I’m finding it excellent. I printed this x-wing a couple days ago.
The quote from the company said it was PVC, should I care about that? Great models btw, way more detail than I have.
They said they’d do the injection moulding in PVC? If so you’d be fine making prototypes/demos in resin.
Also, have you in to the game crafter to see if they can do what you need?
Yes, they saw most of my blender models and said that was the best choice. Not sure as to why, is that weird?
Also, have you in to the game crafter to see if they can do what you need?
I’m not sure of what that is, is that a community?
I started 3d printing with resin printing too. But do you think it’s a good entry point for op’s this purpose?
3D printing has become really accessible over the past few years. Many affordable entry level printers come with automatic bed leveling and direct drive extruders, which previously only came on more expensive printers. IMO, it sounds like your use case is perfect for 3D Printing. There’s a variety of great entry level printers you can pickup right now for fairly cheap. I don’t have experience with them myself, but the Elegoo Neptune 3 or 4 seem to be well regarded for their price point. As far as getting started, Thomas Sanladerer has a great intro to 3DP that can get your started on the concepts. It’s not hard to pickup. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDJMid0lOOYnkcFhz6rfQ6Uj8x7meNJJx
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/playlist?list=PLDJMid0lOOYnkcFhz6rfQ6Uj8x7meNJJx
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
The youtube link is priceless, I looked for info on how to start but there was just too much with so many other things going on. I really appreciate that link. I read somewhere about the self-leveling, that sounds like a must have that I’ll try to remember not to let go by the wayside.
Check with your local libraries! I work in a public library makerspace, we do this kind of stuff all the time. Most libraries do it either completely free or for the price of materials
Wait, I’m in Seattle, we have a great library and I never thought I should check there. I’ll look into there or the King County libraries. Thanks for that info.
Edit: Apparently we do not have a great library in that respect. No 3d printers, which is surprising tbh.
Awww that’s a shame! I’m honestly pretty surprised, my library isn’t even that big. Tell them to get their act together lol
“Makerspaces” exist for a reason.
You should be able to get access to a higher-quality 3d printer (or CNC mill, or Laser Cutter) from a typical makerspace. It’d be basically a club (often near universities) where people effectively pool their money together for collective ownership.
My local makerspace is at a community college. It requires a safety class before you can use the equipment, so there’s a few weeks of spinup time. The rules will be different wherever you are. In this case, my local State sponsored the funds for the 3d printer, but I still have to pay for resin costs and whatnot when using the printer.
Good software costs a ton of money too, and you might want to find a Makerspace just so that you can get access to the $4000+ class software that engineers use. Or at least the $1000+ software? Thinking like Rhino CAD, Autotools, or a few other professional tools.
Blender is more of a 3d graphics (think Toy Story movie) kind of workflow. It can do 3d designs but its not the original design.
I looked at the makerspaces in my area and all of their 3d printing classes are filled. I would have to pay by the half hour for them to do it but I have no idea how long each piece would take.
My local makerspace is at a community college.
I just checked, no dice.
Blender is more of a 3d graphics (think Toy Story movie) kind of workflow. It can do 3d designs but its not the original design.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that, I know AutoCAD, Revit, Blender and have used 3D Studio a long time ago, it uses the same basics of building in 3d. Do you mean the slicing software?
Edit: I appreciate the suggestions, I hope that didn’t text weird.
CAD software is better suited for precision designing. I don’t know if you would require that kind of presicion for board game parts. At least for early stages it may not be a requirement.
I for one still use blender for kinda presicion 3d models.
The models are already built, I made them awhile ago. Some of them have some issues with pieces being random and I wasn’t sure how clean I need to make the models for them to print well. This is one of the reasons I kind of want to get my own printer too, I don’t know how much I don’t know.
Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. Yes, Blender does great for detailed drawings as well as movies.
Blender has a ton of “movie” features, such as animation, keyframes, bones, etc. etc. Its almost entirely focused on movie-making. None of these features are useful to you, and in fact they’re harming your workflow. (They’re distracting items on the menu and manual)
Rhino, which is a freeform CAD program for industrial design has many more features. Not only is it $1000 however, but its focus on making artistic 3d printed models is obvious once you use such a program.
AutoCAD is more of an engineer’s tool. Its extremely precise but non-artistic in design. Its $4000 as well, but also the wrong tool for making a board game piece.
You’re using the wrong 3d program (Blender) to make your board game pieces. That’s all I’m saying. The people in the know would use a program like Rhino (or a comparable industrial design 3d to manufacturing tool). Blender can work, but its obvious that it doesn’t have the CAD or CAM features that a proper industrial tool would have.
Without a CAM-plugin package, are you even sure that your design can be 3d printed correctly? Have you thought about how the 3d printer nozzle (or CNC mill, or whatever you’re using) will create the end-product? Do you have holes in your design?
Do you have any overhangs that are unstable or unable to be printed?
https://www.3dprintingera.com/3d-printing-overhangs-and-bridges/
A tool like RhinoCAM-Mesh (ugggh, another $1000, but you get the gist of this hobby…) will automatically 3d print supports that will snap off so that whatever shape you wanted will be possible to be made.
https://mecsoft.com/products/rhinocam/rhinocammesh/
Just because you made it in Blender doesn’t mean its possible to 3d print. You need to double-check the “head” of the 3d printer, see if it ever collides with your design, check to see overhangs are set, etc. etc. Sometimes, its impossible and you have to go back to square-one and redesign the whole toy (or sculpture) in order for it to be 3d printed.
Tightly-integrated CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) tools check these things for you. If you’ve never thought about how the 3d printer head moves, or what angles are impossible to print, or etc. etc., then you haven’t finished your job. You want to get the CAM to double-check these things for you, and yeah its expensive but its all software these days.
So yeah, a tool like Rhino (lol $1000) plus RhinoCAM-Mesh (lol another $1000) to do this workflow. Now you can do this all manually yourself of course and “design your 3d game piece” for 3d printing (including thinking of temporary struts / braces you need to print-then-cut-out to make your designs successful). But that takes a bit more skill and manual effort, because Blender has no such CAM tools available (at least, that I’m aware of).
Blender has a ton of “movie” features, such as animation, keyframes, bones, etc. etc. Its almost entirely focused on movie-making.
I appreciate what you’re saying but I’m not sure you’ve used Blender lately. It does sculpting, 3d tech and all that, it gets very precise. It’s not as easy to use as AutoCAD and Revit to get precise, but you can do it. All of the architects and engineers I know and work with use AutoCad and Revit and it’s for creating details for arch & hvac drawings. The company I’m working with said they will adjust the file and have that built into the price for manufacturing. I just want to give them a clean file. Thanks though, I don’t think I need it for this, the company I’m working with knows what I’m giving them and seem fine. It’s one component of a huge puzzle.
