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At Architects of Destruction we are doing a kickstarter for plastic injection molded interlocking dungeon tiles.

Funded in first day we're into day 3 and over 115K.

Feel free to ask any questions about the kickstarter here.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/606457671/rampage-dungeon-seamless-interlocking-dungeon-tile

I've attached pictures of the 3 pledge levels for the kickstarter.






and unlocked addons












Next addon to be unlocked

I would love something like this, but I cant see a way around the high costs and bulky storage that are both inevitable.

Its a wonderful dream I will have to keep in my head.

Good luck.

The cost comes to something like less than a dollar per molded piece. That's about as good as I've found for any dungeon tile (and may miniature) KS. Per square foot, it's more expensive, but one Rampage floor tile is equivalent to a floor tile, a wall tile, a corner tile, a dead-end tile, a door tile, an arch tile, *and* a portcullis tile. I *do* think your best bet is to have DF tiles for corners and single-walls (which typically means rooms) and Rampage for passages with one or more walls (which typically means corridors). Rampage tiles are designed to stack, and I expect to stack them on top of my DF game tiles.

As for storage, most of the pieces lay flat, compared to tiles with built-in walls and corners. In theory, that means easier storage, although I dunno if I'd really take *all* the pieces apart after play. OTOH, the sections stack, so you could make some ad-hoc stacked storage from these tiles, and maybe even some sort of display "shelf" for your mini's.

Those look great! What sort of plastic is it?

Update: I read the Kickstarter, it's hard ABS plastic.

I will say that the nice thing about these tiles over say DF tiles, other than the being able to connect to create more solid pieces.. is if you have a 3d printer, the printable tiles they produce are all compatible. So you could do a core set of sturdy pieces, then print individual pieces that were missed or needed. Of course, you could also just simply print the whole thing if you wanted only the STLs without doing the KS as well.

As an FYI, nearly identical pieces are available on sites like Thingiverse.com using similar locking tiles. Search for Openlock or similar. If you want a lot of this, spend the money on a 3D printer instead and crank out as much as you want.

To be clear... the files on Thingiverse are freely available for download. There are no IP shenanigans in play. This KS is essentially "pre-printing" them for you.

 Kriswall wrote:
This KS is essentially "pre-printing" them for you.

Can you explain what you mean, as this Kickstarter is using cut steel tools for injection molding plastic? I am having trouble finding how it is "essentially" anything similar

ced1106 wrote:
The cost comes to something like less than a dollar per molded piece. That's about as good as I've found for any dungeon tile (and may miniature) KS. Per square foot, it's more expensive, but one Rampage floor tile is equivalent to a floor tile, a wall tile, a corner tile, a dead-end tile, a door tile, an arch tile, *and* a portcullis tile. I *do* think your best bet is to have DF tiles for corners and single-walls (which typically means rooms) and Rampage for passages with one or more walls (which typically means corridors). Rampage tiles are designed to stack, and I expect to stack them on top of my DF game tiles.

A corner takes a floor, two walls, an L-connector and eight clips.

Retail: The DF 'Starter Dungeon' is a room 5x5 squares with a door and a treasure pile. The cost is $35 unpainted, painted $49.
KS: The RD 'Switch Room' is a room 4x4 squares with a door (and two switches). The cost is $19 unpainted, painted $39
KS: The RD 'secret room' is a room 6x4 squares with three secret doors. The cost is $27 unpainted, painted $39
We'll have to see what it'll cost in retail.

The problem Orlanth probably has is with shipping, a $54 pledge costs $15-$40 in shipping, so that's a potential $94 for three rooms.

I think that if your interested in interlocking clips, this is the KS for you. But if your interested in easily build-able terrain, you'll look at DF, the range is far more extensive.

I think it's interesting, but I bought heavily into the Rampage STL files and just bought a 3d printer:
https://www.printablescenery.com/product-category/rampage-system/

So none for me...

 judgedoug wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
This KS is essentially "pre-printing" them for you.

Can you explain what you mean, as this Kickstarter is using cut steel tools for injection molding plastic? I am having trouble finding how it is "essentially" anything similar

Nearly identical files have been available on sites like Thingiverse for free for awhile now. Anyone with a printer can download the files, print and paint. This Kickstarter is eliminating the need to print the files yourself. I get that they're using an injection molding process. That's why I used quotes. The Kickstarter serves the same function as any number of current Etsy users with 3D printers who will print, paint and ship files like these for a fee.

It's a good idea. My point is that it's not a novel or particularly cost effective idea. If you like to have a bit more contro, printers that will give you a pretty close result are down to about $200 and would allow you to print any number of these things. In fact, it looks like the company in question is giving away at least some of the files for free...

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2343306

 Kriswall wrote:
As an FYI, nearly identical pieces are available on sites like Thingiverse.com using similar locking tiles.

Your definition of 'nearly identical' must be quite different from mine...

There are awesome 3D files on Thingyverse, you can use them for free, BUT there's also a lot of garbage and Meh!(tm) files. Particularly the dungeon tiles that aren't free promotional material for paid STL files are quite lackluster. This ABS injection molded plastic tiles are based on the Rampage line, i've linked to above. Those are quite good, there's some free products, sure. But if your spending a couple of hundred dollars on a noisy 3d printer, another couple of hundred in filament, another couple of hundred in energy bills and a few hundred hours of you life in such a project, You might want to upgrade, for a couple of tenners, from Meh!(tm) to pretty darned good! Or if your a bit more patient, you can wait till the next KS they'll run and spend $85 on their entire Dungeon line STL files (53 product, 1000-2000 different items to print):https://www.printablescenery.com/product-category/pledges/rampage/the-crypts/
I thought that was a great price compared to the quality difference with most of the Thingyverse items.

Then we get to the, 'just buy a 3d printer and print', that requires assembly, some technical skills and quite a bit of patience. Your pieces won't be as smooth as injection molded part, especially not with FDM (what we're talking about here, if you want to do this in resin, this is costing you a LOT more). You'll always see print lines, depending on how small a 'print head' you use and how tiny each layer is. Recommended layer height is 0..2mm or 0.1mm, smaller layers and a smaller 'print head' take significantly more print time, you'll also need to slow down the speed of your 'print head'. A single print (component) at high quality can take hours, a whole plate full, days (depending how large your build plate is and how your orientate your prints). That takes a significant amount of power, if your in the US I hear people quoting $0.10/KWh, here in Europe we can easily pay $0.30/KWh. The 3D printer doesn't just move a 'print head', it warms the 'print head' and the print bed at a constant temperature. Filament costs between $10 and $30+ per kg, depending on the infill (~20%), you can print quite a bit with a kg. But even a moderately useful dungeon will take quite a few kilo's to print. Then we have failed prints, not fun when it fails after wasting 0.75kg of filament and many hours printing, this happens to professionals (so don't think it won't happen to you). I hope you'll have a noise dampening room, otherwise you'll spend more money and time on modding your printer.

And you'll need to paint it yourself, no option to print it painted (sure you could do multi material prints, but that's gonna cost and while it's possible to mix filaments, the tech isn't really there yet to 'paint' your models beyond the basic colors without a ton of manual work (quicker to paint by hand!).

For a lot of people 3d printing is either not an option or something they want to spend time on, because it's a hobby in itself. Especially RPGers are more likely to fork over money for a painted terrain (DF prooved that), not everyone of those is also into miniatures or technical stuff.

For me it's awesome! I'm already thinking up new ways to mod my unbuild printer...

I bought 2 printers to print Printable Scenery's last Kickstarter the Lost Islands, printing buildings is great, quality is great, getting to scale the models larger to fit GW's more heroic scale was great!

However I just recently started printing a tile set for a friend and it is absolutely the worst experience of my life... I am actually on the verge of being burnt out on this whole 3D printer craze and selling my Prusa. Sure you can download the STL files and filament is cheap, but this is so slow going and way more things to print than I originally anticipated.

Im not in the market for a dungeon tile set, I bought in on DF's very first KS and didnt use it much, but for people who dont want to maintain a printer that has to run 24/7 for a month to get a dungeon layout this is a pretty good deal.

Cergorach wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
As an FYI, nearly identical pieces are available on sites like Thingiverse.com using similar locking tiles.

... Your pieces won't be as smooth as injection molded part ... You'll always see print lines ...

THIS.

BIG selling point for me and many others.

Personally, I love what 3D printers can do but hate the striations the current technology and print resolutions create. I'm looking forward to future improvements but, for now, injection molding is my preference.

Agree here as well, as much as I love the buildings I have been printing, they are shredding my paint brushes because of the course texture of the 3D printed models.

Cergorach wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
As an FYI, nearly identical pieces are available on sites like Thingiverse.com using similar locking tiles.

Your definition of 'nearly identical' must be quite different from mine...

There are awesome 3D files on Thingyverse, you can use them for free, BUT there's also a lot of garbage and Meh!(tm) files. Particularly the dungeon tiles that aren't free promotional material for paid STL files are quite lackluster. This ABS injection molded plastic tiles are based on the Rampage line, i've linked to above. Those are quite good, there's some free products, sure. But if your spending a couple of hundred dollars on a noisy 3d printer, another couple of hundred in filament, another couple of hundred in energy bills and a few hundred hours of you life in such a project, You might want to upgrade, for a couple of tenners, from Meh!(tm) to pretty darned good! Or if your a bit more patient, you can wait till the next KS they'll run and spend $85 on their entire Dungeon line STL files (53 product, 1000-2000 different items to print):https://www.printablescenery.com/product-category/pledges/rampage/the-crypts/
I thought that was a great price compared to the quality difference with most of the Thingyverse items.

Then we get to the, 'just buy a 3d printer and print', that requires assembly, some technical skills and quite a bit of patience. Your pieces won't be as smooth as injection molded part, especially not with FDM (what we're talking about here, if you want to do this in resin, this is costing you a LOT more). You'll always see print lines, depending on how small a 'print head' you use and how tiny each layer is. Recommended layer height is 0..2mm or 0.1mm, smaller layers and a smaller 'print head' take significantly more print time, you'll also need to slow down the speed of your 'print head'. A single print (component) at high quality can take hours, a whole plate full, days (depending how large your build plate is and how your orientate your prints). That takes a significant amount of power, if your in the US I hear people quoting $0.10/KWh, here in Europe we can easily pay $0.30/KWh. The 3D printer doesn't just move a 'print head', it warms the 'print head' and the print bed at a constant temperature. Filament costs between $10 and $30+ per kg, depending on the infill (~20%), you can print quite a bit with a kg. But even a moderately useful dungeon will take quite a few kilo's to print. Then we have failed prints, not fun when it fails after wasting 0.75kg of filament and many hours printing, this happens to professionals (so don't think it won't happen to you). I hope you'll have a noise dampening room, otherwise you'll spend more money and time on modding your printer.

And you'll need to paint it yourself, no option to print it painted (sure you could do multi material prints, but that's gonna cost and while it's possible to mix filaments, the tech isn't really there yet to 'paint' your models beyond the basic colors without a ton of manual work (quicker to paint by hand!).

For a lot of people 3d printing is either not an option or something they want to spend time on, because it's a hobby in itself. Especially RPGers are more likely to fork over money for a painted terrain (DF prooved that), not everyone of those is also into miniatures or technical stuff.

For me it's awesome! I'm already thinking up new ways to mod my unbuild printer...

Lots of fear, uncertainty and doubt about 3D printing and the freely available files in your post there. A few observations...

1. The whole issue of "ZOMG THE PRINTERS ARE SO NOISY" is enormously blown out of proportion. Buy a heavy paving stone (I got one for 4 USD) and set the printer on top of it. That eliminates the majority of the vibration... which is where the noise comes from. My printer is in a side room with thin walls. I can't hear it if I'm not in the same room. Modding the printer to cut down on vibration is mostly unnecessary if you just sit it on something that is too heavy to vibrate. In fairness, before the stone it was pretty noisy. I just don't consider it much of an issue when the fix is trivial and cheap.

2. I said "nearly identical" because from 3ft away and with equivalent paint jobs consisting mainly of drybrushing and washes, it's hard for an average person to tell whether or not something was printed or injection molded. Up close, you'll be able to tell, but I have yet to play with someone who plays by hovering inches away from the terrain. With a large brush and a few similar colors (dark grey, grey, light grey) it's trivial to paint an entire tables worth of terrain in an afternoon. Add in a few highlight colors hear and there to make things pop.

3. Filament is cheap. If you're going to paint what you're printing, color doesn't matter. I buy the cheapest filament I can find. I can't remember the last time I spent more than $12 on a kg of PLA. I print terrain type things at 0.20mm layer height and 10% infill. 20% infill is unnecessarily high for most things... especially terrain things. You can print a TON of things using a kg of material. Your example of a print failing after using 75% of a 1kg spool is very misleading because I've yet to print any single print run that used anywhere close to 75%+ of a spool... also, my experience has been that if the first layer sticks well and you have a good printer, you're 99% likely to have a good print.

4. 3D printing generally has a very small time investment, assuming you're using existing files. Sure, it takes the printer a long time to print, but it's not like you have to hover over it the whole time. I generally grab some files, hit print, make sure the first layer sticks and then walk away. My total ACTUAL time investment for a 24 hour print is maybe 5-10 minutes.

Having said all this, I totally get that some people aren't interested. I like the idea of injection molded modular terrain. I just wanted to point out that 3D printing tech has come a LONG way in the past 5-10 years and it's no longer this terrifying and nitpicky hobby. I spent $599 on a Prusa Original i3 Mk2S. It has some neat features like an auto-levelling bed. I swipe a kid's washable glue stick over the bed to help with adhesion, hit print and walk away. I think in the year+ that I've owned this thing, I've had only a very small handful of bad prints... all of which were my fault (scaling things weird, trying to print things with severe overhangs without using supports, etc).

If you like the idea of buying already manufactured goods, go crazy. These def look nice. If you want more bang for your buck with more variety, look into 3D printing. It's not good for the minis, but it's spectacular for terrain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Myrthe wrote:

Cergorach wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
As an FYI, nearly identical pieces are available on sites like Thingiverse.com using similar locking tiles.

... Your pieces won't be as smooth as injection molded part ... You'll always see print lines ...

THIS.

BIG selling point for me and many others.

Personally, I love what 3D printers can do but hate the striations the current technology and print resolutions create. I'm looking forward to future improvements but, for now, injection molding is my preference.

The whole lines thing I think is also overblown. A decent paint job and a little understanding of how printers print can do a lot to get rid of the lines. I designed, printed and painted the wheeled Rhino in the below link. If you look close, you can see the lines... but you have to look close. From even a foot or two away, they're mostly invisible. I want to say I printed that at either 0.20 or 0.15mm layer height... which would be considered a medium to low quality print for an FDM printer.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2743585

Hows the glue stick working for you? Do you heat the bed first before wiping? I am having a dreadful time getting consistent bed adhesion with my Prusa. Large prints with enough surface area seem fine but anything small my Prusa just cant do it and I use my Monoprice for. Its frustrating to say the least

Chopxsticks wrote:
Hows the glue stick working for you? Do you heat the bed first before wiping? I am having a dreadful time getting consistent bed adhesion with my Prusa. Large prints with enough surface area seem fine but anything small my Prusa just cant do it and I use my Monoprice for. Its frustrating to say the least

Works great. I buy the Elmer's Washable kind that goes on purple and dries clear. I DON'T buy the 2x Strength Purple. It's weird. They look the same. The washable works better. I don't see much difference with using the stick pre or post bed heating. I don't tend to have an issue with small things sticking. I DID have an issue before the glue stick. I think a thin layer of glue stick gives you a little wiggle room on that first layer. It doesn't need to be perfect and it'll still stick fine.

I DO have to wash the bed every week or so. Takes about 10minutes, but I consider that a fine price to pay for basically never having print issues.

You don't have to go to Thingiverse. The Rampage KS itself says it's licensing the Rampage rights from Printable Scenery. You CAN get the .stl files for FREE plus more from them. : https://www.printablescenery.com/product/rampage-base-pack/

I'm sure in a year or two, we'll all be printing not just tiles, but all sorts of products, and definitely not ordering them through KS -- particularly internationals who are only going to see shipping costs rise. But, for those who don't yet have a 3D printer and don't want to pay $1K for a higher-end 3D printer, here's part of the Fat Dragon FAQ:

Creality Ender 3 ($230): This printer has become our favorite in the office. It produces prints better than any other machine we have tried (even ones costing 4x as much!) The printer is a bare-bones machine, which means it does not have a lot of bells and whistles like auto-bed leveling, filament detection sensors, etc. None of these are essential, and the machine you get is a workhorse. Bed leveling is accomplished by manually turning four dials (one in each corner) of the bed, and will take you 15-20 minutes to do before the first time you use it. Once dialed in, you shouldn’t have to adjust it again for a long time. The only downside to this printer is it require partial assembly before use. Nothing too hard, just some screws and plugging a few wires in (no soldering required.) This is our top pick for getting started 3D printing at home, and we have a lot of linked resources at the bottom of this page for it.

A: Time depends on the resolution you are printing at. As an example, on our Ender 3, we can print a standard 28mm skeleton miniature in about 1 hour, and a dungeon wall tile in 2.5 hours.

2.5 hours is... a long time. Sure, I'm waiting much longer for a KS to fulfill, but at least I'm not babysitting it. And, of course, once I do get a 3D printer (in a year or two!), I'll be printing out entire generic fantasy villages instead of game tiles! : https://www.printablescenery.com/product-category/fantasy/buildings-fantasy/?product_count=24


The creator, btw, is also the owner of a 3D printing service, https://www.gamesprintshop.com/. He said that he has fifteen printers working 24/7 and there's still a wait of 20 days for an order.

Can't wait to get an inexpensive fast high-quality 3D printer so I can fill up my room with even more things I have no space for!

ced1106 wrote:
2.5 hours is... a long time. Sure, I'm waiting much longer for a KS to fulfill, but at least I'm not babysitting it.

To be clear, you're also not babysitting the printer. If you're calibrated and the first layer sticks, you pretty much just walk away and do other things. Printers aren't nearly as picky as they used to be and don't require constant attention.

 Kriswall wrote:

1. The whole issue of "ZOMG THE PRINTERS ARE SO NOISY" is enormously blown out of proportion. Buy a heavy paving stone (I got one for 4 USD) and set the printer on top of it. That eliminates the majority of the vibration... which is where the noise comes from. My printer is in a side room with thin walls. I can't hear it if I'm not in the same room. Modding the printer to cut down on vibration is mostly unnecessary if you just sit it on something that is too heavy to vibrate. In fairness, before the stone it was pretty noisy. I just don't consider it much of an issue when the fix is trivial and cheap.

That might be a bit of a heavy solution, you can get rid of a lot of vibration bij placing it on foam (the same foam the printer came with). The other 'whine' comes from vibration it the frame by the frame itself (instead of the underlying surface), which can be solved by relatively cheap dampers on the motor mounts. And acceleration/jittering which could be partly solved by using TL Smoothers. Further noise reduction can be achieved by making an encloser (just google ikea 3d printer enclosure). While a lot is possible, it costs additional time, money and knowledge/skill to do it well.

 Kriswall wrote:

2. I said "nearly identical" because from 3ft away and with equivalent paint jobs consisting mainly of drybrushing and washes, it's hard for an average person to tell whether or not something was printed or injection molded. Up close, you'll be able to tell, but I have yet to play with someone who plays by hovering inches away from the terrain. With a large brush and a few similar colors (dark grey, grey, light grey) it's trivial to paint an entire tables worth of terrain in an afternoon. Add in a few highlight colors hear and there to make things pop.

Well, this product isn't aimed at wargamers, it's aimed at RPGers. And while we're used to prepainted plastics by WotC and Wizkids (they kinda suck in a nice time saving way), we're sitting at a table and maybe the other side of the dungeon is 3' away, but the closest side of the dungeon is quite close. This holds especially true for boardgames using dungeons, such as Descent, Imperial Assault, Zombicide - Black Plague, etc. Also, quite a few of us are idealistic detailists and quite anal in 'The Quality', call it OCD for gamers... ;-)

 Kriswall wrote:

3. Filament is cheap. If you're going to paint what you're printing, color doesn't matter. I buy the cheapest filament I can find. I can't remember the last time I spent more than $12 on a kg of PLA. I print terrain type things at 0.20mm layer height and 10% infill. 20% infill is unnecessarily high for most things... especially terrain things. You can print a TON of things using a kg of material. Your example of a print failing after using 75% of a 1kg spool is very misleading because I've yet to print any single print run that used anywhere close to 75%+ of a spool... also, my experience has been that if the first layer sticks well and you have a good printer, you're 99% likely to have a good print.

I'll point you to this fellow (fun video's btw.), he prints professionally for clients: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTmtpvKezz0
This is someone who knows what he's doing and it happened twice in a row for him, sure it's a big plate, but if your starting a 30cm x 30cm plate full of closely stacked walls at the recommended settings. Also, he does have a big bin for failed filament. ;-) I intend to test quite a few things with settings and quality, but most noobs just try to print at the recommended settings and think smaller layer hight means more details. I think NO One with a hobby FDM printer has a 99% success rate, if you think about it honestly, neither have you.

 Kriswall wrote:

4. 3D printing generally has a very small time investment, assuming you're using existing files. Sure, it takes the printer a long time to print, but it's not like you have to hover over it the whole time. I generally grab some files, hit print, make sure the first layer sticks and then walk away. My total ACTUAL time investment for a 24 hour print is maybe 5-10 minutes.

Again, if you honestly assess how much time you've spent getting to this level of efficiency, is that really 5-10min for every 24 hour print. How much time did you spent on choosing the 'right' 3D printer? How much time did you spent looking for the right (cheapest) filaments? The mods? The right settings for your printer? Building an Octoprint device? The best settings for files x and y?

 Kriswall wrote:

Having said all this, I totally get that some people aren't interested. I like the idea of injection molded modular terrain. I just wanted to point out that 3D printing tech has come a LONG way in the past 5-10 years and it's no longer this terrifying and nitpicky hobby. I spent $599 on a Prusa Original i3 Mk2S. It has some neat features like an auto-levelling bed. I swipe a kid's washable glue stick over the bed to help with adhesion, hit print and walk away. I think in the year+ that I've owned this thing, I've had only a very small handful of bad prints... all of which were my fault (scaling things weird, trying to print things with severe overhangs without using supports, etc).

I agree and Prusa 3D printers are probably some of the best in that price bracket. But $599 is as much as the Lich pledge here and painted, for many that is more then enough who don't want the hassle and loss of quality. Personally I was ogling the Prusa MK3 for a long time, but €769 is quite a lot of money, especially for your first 3D printer. So I recently bought a Creality Ender 3 for €180 (shipped), I've ordered some dampers and will order some TL smoothers shortly. After printing a lot of mods and other upgrades, i might get another kit and try changing out the extruder, auto bedleveling I'll get to after I've experience the frustration of doing it manually. For me this is besides a tool to create interesting stuff with, also an interesting tool...

The problem with 3D printers is that people are far too afraid of starting with it or have unrealistic expectations, expecting 2D like performance, speed, ease of use and quality. They buy a cheap printer (I think the Ender 3 is the first decent cheap printer that you don't have to completely rebuild for decent prints), but people notice all the issues I've mentioned before and balk at spending more money, time and waiting to get better results and less noise.

 Kriswall wrote:

If you like the idea of buying already manufactured goods, go crazy. These def look nice. If you want more bang for your buck with more variety, look into 3D printing. It's not good for the minis, but it's spectacular for terrain.

This is a far fairer assessment then your earlier post.

 Kriswall wrote:

The whole lines thing I think is also overblown. A decent paint job and a little understanding of how printers print can do a lot to get rid of the lines. I designed, printed and painted the wheeled Rhino in the below link. If you look close, you can see the lines... but you have to look close. From even a foot or two away, they're mostly invisible. I want to say I printed that at either 0.20 or 0.15mm layer height... which would be considered a medium to low quality print for an FDM printer.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2743585

Cool model! But many of those makes have been done with 0.1 layer height, you even did a 20% infil ;-) The print looks awesome, I wish every print was that nice! Just look at the make with the dark blue and white, a shame there weren't details posted with that...

Cergorach wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

1. The whole issue of "ZOMG THE PRINTERS ARE SO NOISY" is enormously blown out of proportion. Buy a heavy paving stone (I got one for 4 USD) and set the printer on top of it. That eliminates the majority of the vibration... which is where the noise comes from. My printer is in a side room with thin walls. I can't hear it if I'm not in the same room. Modding the printer to cut down on vibration is mostly unnecessary if you just sit it on something that is too heavy to vibrate. In fairness, before the stone it was pretty noisy. I just don't consider it much of an issue when the fix is trivial and cheap.

That might be a bit of a heavy solution, you can get rid of a lot of vibration bij placing it on foam (the same foam the printer came with). The other 'whine' comes from vibration it the frame by the frame itself (instead of the underlying surface), which can be solved by relatively cheap dampers on the motor mounts. And acceleration/jittering which could be partly solved by using TL Smoothers. Further noise reduction can be achieved by making an encloser (just google ikea 3d printer enclosure). While a lot is possible, it costs additional time, money and knowledge/skill to do it well.

 Kriswall wrote:

2. I said "nearly identical" because from 3ft away and with equivalent paint jobs consisting mainly of drybrushing and washes, it's hard for an average person to tell whether or not something was printed or injection molded. Up close, you'll be able to tell, but I have yet to play with someone who plays by hovering inches away from the terrain. With a large brush and a few similar colors (dark grey, grey, light grey) it's trivial to paint an entire tables worth of terrain in an afternoon. Add in a few highlight colors hear and there to make things pop.

Well, this product isn't aimed at wargamers, it's aimed at RPGers. And while we're used to prepainted plastics by WotC and Wizkids (they kinda suck in a nice time saving way), we're sitting at a table and maybe the other side of the dungeon is 3' away, but the closest side of the dungeon is quite close. This holds especially true for boardgames using dungeons, such as Descent, Imperial Assault, Zombicide - Black Plague, etc. Also, quite a few of us are idealistic detailists and quite anal in 'The Quality', call it OCD for gamers... ;-)

 Kriswall wrote:

3. Filament is cheap. If you're going to paint what you're printing, color doesn't matter. I buy the cheapest filament I can find. I can't remember the last time I spent more than $12 on a kg of PLA. I print terrain type things at 0.20mm layer height and 10% infill. 20% infill is unnecessarily high for most things... especially terrain things. You can print a TON of things using a kg of material. Your example of a print failing after using 75% of a 1kg spool is very misleading because I've yet to print any single print run that used anywhere close to 75%+ of a spool... also, my experience has been that if the first layer sticks well and you have a good printer, you're 99% likely to have a good print.

I'll point you to this fellow (fun video's btw.), he prints professionally for clients: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTmtpvKezz0
This is someone who knows what he's doing and it happened twice in a row for him, sure it's a big plate, but if your starting a 30cm x 30cm plate full of closely stacked walls at the recommended settings. Also, he does have a big bin for failed filament. ;-) I intend to test quite a few things with settings and quality, but most noobs just try to print at the recommended settings and think smaller layer hight means more details. I think NO One with a hobby FDM printer has a 99% success rate, if you think about it honestly, neither have you.

 Kriswall wrote:

4. 3D printing generally has a very small time investment, assuming you're using existing files. Sure, it takes the printer a long time to print, but it's not like you have to hover over it the whole time. I generally grab some files, hit print, make sure the first layer sticks and then walk away. My total ACTUAL time investment for a 24 hour print is maybe 5-10 minutes.

Again, if you honestly assess how much time you've spent getting to this level of efficiency, is that really 5-10min for every 24 hour print. How much time did you spent on choosing the 'right' 3D printer? How much time did you spent looking for the right (cheapest) filaments? The mods? The right settings for your printer? Building an Octoprint device? The best settings for files x and y?

 Kriswall wrote:

Having said all this, I totally get that some people aren't interested. I like the idea of injection molded modular terrain. I just wanted to point out that 3D printing tech has come a LONG way in the past 5-10 years and it's no longer this terrifying and nitpicky hobby. I spent $599 on a Prusa Original i3 Mk2S. It has some neat features like an auto-levelling bed. I swipe a kid's washable glue stick over the bed to help with adhesion, hit print and walk away. I think in the year+ that I've owned this thing, I've had only a very small handful of bad prints... all of which were my fault (scaling things weird, trying to print things with severe overhangs without using supports, etc).

I agree and Prusa 3D printers are probably some of the best in that price bracket. But $599 is as much as the Lich pledge here and painted, for many that is more then enough who don't want the hassle and loss of quality. Personally I was ogling the Prusa MK3 for a long time, but €769 is quite a lot of money, especially for your first 3D printer. So I recently bought a Creality Ender 3 for €180 (shipped), I've ordered some dampers and will order some TL smoothers shortly. After printing a lot of mods and other upgrades, i might get another kit and try changing out the extruder, auto bedleveling I'll get to after I've experience the frustration of doing it manually. For me this is besides a tool to create interesting stuff with, also an interesting tool...

The problem with 3D printers is that people are far too afraid of starting with it or have unrealistic expectations, expecting 2D like performance, speed, ease of use and quality. They buy a cheap printer (I think the Ender 3 is the first decent cheap printer that you don't have to completely rebuild for decent prints), but people notice all the issues I've mentioned before and balk at spending more money, time and waiting to get better results and less noise.

 Kriswall wrote:

If you like the idea of buying already manufactured goods, go crazy. These def look nice. If you want more bang for your buck with more variety, look into 3D printing. It's not good for the minis, but it's spectacular for terrain.

This is a far fairer assessment then your earlier post.

 Kriswall wrote:

The whole lines thing I think is also overblown. A decent paint job and a little understanding of how printers print can do a lot to get rid of the lines. I designed, printed and painted the wheeled Rhino in the below link. If you look close, you can see the lines... but you have to look close. From even a foot or two away, they're mostly invisible. I want to say I printed that at either 0.20 or 0.15mm layer height... which would be considered a medium to low quality print for an FDM printer.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2743585

Cool model! But many of those makes have been done with 0.1 layer height, you even did a 20% infil ;-) The print looks awesome, I wish every print was that nice! Just look at the make with the dark blue and white, a shame there weren't details posted with that...

Yeah, my printer defaults to 20%. I stuck with that for awhile and then switched to 10%. Had no impact at all on the external detail of the model... it just uses half the filament (not counting the shell). Fair comment on the blue and white one (not mine). Looks like maybe it didn't get a nice smooth basecoat. You can't really drybrush printed stuff because instead of making the lines disappear, you call insane attention to them.

Yes yes 3d printers are great but in the meantime Dwarven Forge, Secret Weapon, and others, will make really nice high quality terrain for those of us that don't feel like doing it ourselves

Just like miniatures companies sell us figures that we could easily cast ourselves, but no thanks, don't feel like ordering a casting kit from Prince August today

 Kriswall wrote:
To be clear, you're also not babysitting the printer. If you're calibrated and the first layer sticks, you pretty much just walk away and do other things. Printers aren't nearly as picky as they used to be and don't require constant attention.

Eh, what I meant by "babysitting" was to start a new print every two hours. Sixty times in a row. I not even interested in checking the laser printer upstairs if it has paper and don't ask me to keep checking what's cooking in the oven.

The last thing I calibrated was last year. Not up for other jiggery-pokery on these newfangled e-lectric de-vices you wild and crazy kids go for.

I'm confident that 3D printers will *greatly* improve in the next few years, but aren't at the "press a button" stage that many consumers would like right now As a generality, technology goes through three stages: enthusiast, business, and consumer. Enthusiasts are willing to pay more than consumers, including time, money, and effort. Essentialy, what the enthusiast sees as a hobby or minor learning curve, the consumer sees as something they just don't want to deal with. Businesses apply the technology to business use, and result in lowering down the prices and streamlined use. Consumers eventually pick up the technology once it becomes inexpensive and easy to use, thanks to the money business has sunk into it. IMO, Right now, 3D printers are in the enthusiast and business stages.

I also think that the first hobby uses of 3D printers won't be to replicate what can be done with injection molding. It'll be more for custom projects that cannot be made with injection molds, such as custom miniatures. (We've already had some KS over a year ago that did exactly this.)

I've followed 2D printers since their business inception back in the 70's. Just imagine installing -- and paying for -- *this* in your home just to print copies. Glad printers are smaller, more affordable, and don't require a maintenance contract!



...yeah, that will fit in the library. I'm sure the wife will let me have one!

Im excited to see competition. Dwarven Forges first Kickstarter I would argue was their best price per piece and has only gotten more expensive it seems each KS. This KS is actually almost twice the base pieces and $10 cheaper, so I am curious to see if this becomes a thing and if the market adjusts to the competition.

 Kriswall wrote:
The whole lines thing I think is also overblown. A decent paint job and a little understanding of how printers print can do a lot to get rid of the lines. I designed, printed and painted the wheeled Rhino in the below link. If you look close, you can see the lines... but you have to look close. From even a foot or two away, they're mostly invisible. I want to say I printed that at either 0.20 or 0.15mm layer height... which would be considered a medium to low quality print for an FDM printer.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2743585

This is literally the last thing I've printed in my fdm printer (Anycubic i3 Mega) at .08mm layers:




(Yeah, I know, the face didn't turn out great, and the paintjob is fast and dirty). The only post processing thing I did was cutting the supports and priming. You'd be really hard pressed to see any kind of line with the naked eye (meaning: you don't fething see any). Print time was about an hour.

ced1106 wrote:

Eh, what I meant by "babysitting" was to start a new print every two hours. Sixty times in a row.

Do you print one page at a time? If so, I can understand you assumption.

You can fill up the build plate and let it print. Even if your printing ground tiles, you can print them on their side (more tiles on the build plate).

There are more user friendly FDM printers out there, they just don't have a consumer price.

As for 2D printers... 20-25 years ago I bought a very small, a very good, a very simple B&W Texas Instruments laser printer that worked for years. After TI sold their printer division, no others produced a laser printer with such a small footprint, at that quality and price. It took another 15-20 years before someone caught up...

Creality Ender 3 ($230): This printer has become our favorite in the office. It produces prints better than any other machine we have tried (even ones costing 4x as much!) The printer is a bare-bones machine, which means it does not have a lot of bells and whistles like auto-bed leveling, filament detection sensors, etc. None of these are essential, and the machine you get is a workhorse. Bed leveling is accomplished by manually turning four dials (one in each corner) of the bed, and will take you 15-20 minutes to do before the first time you use it. Once dialed in, you shouldn’t have to adjust it again for a long time. The only downside to this printer is it require partial assembly before use. Nothing too hard, just some screws and plugging a few wires in (no soldering required.) This is our top pick for getting started 3D printing at home, and we have a lot of linked resources at the bottom of this page for it.

A: Time depends on the resolution you are printing at. As an example, on our Ender 3, we can print a standard 28mm skeleton miniature in about 1 hour, and a dungeon wall tile in 2.5 hours.

I already mentioned that a miniature takes one hour. Does it still take this long for a game tile?

With individual miniatures I see *much* more use for a 3D printer, particularly when you have software that lets you customize a miniature. But game tiles aren't miniatures, and 50-100 pieces will take you far more time than a hour, particularly if you sleep longer than 2.5 hours at a time. Just as television and home theaters still haven't pushed out traditional movie theatres, and email hasn't killed off mail, I think 3D printing won't kill off plastic injection molding. It's just important to recognize that alternative technologies and product don't *have* to be replacements. They just mean they have different strengths and you should take advantage of these strengths, the right tool for the right job sorta thing. I think 3D printing will open up consumer *way* beyond anything plastic injection molding has to offer. But not today with game tiles.

And maybe game tiles will be entirely bypassed with future 3D printers! Just as 3D print designs for buildings are single buildings rather than separate pieces, we may have modules that come with .stl files that you send to your printer, and prints out an entire dungeon (or more like dungeon sections you place on the table as you play). Print off your entire dungeon, forget the tiles. When you're done, you can reuse the sections, or have another bunch of lovely dice trays and cat boxes!

Anyway, 4pm PST Q&A session on the Rampage KS page. Starts in one minute!

EDIT: Rampage Q&A says the injection molded pieces will have higher resolution than 3D printer files.

Chopxsticks wrote:
Im excited to see competition. Dwarven Forges first Kickstarter I would argue was their best price per piece and has only gotten more expensive it seems each KS. This KS is actually almost twice the base pieces and $10 cheaper, so I am curious to see if this becomes a thing and if the market adjusts to the competition.

I absolutely agree! I missed the first and second KS and later bought the first KS stuff (plus extras) from dwarvenforge.eu. It's quite heavy, so extremely expensive to ship from the US, making it even more expensive for us in the EU. GBP370 (including shipping) gave me quite a few pieces to play with. Extremely strong and durable stuff!

I loved the lake and cavern expansion, but those became so expensive that I couldn't justify it. The more recent DF have indeed become way more expensive! That said, I suspect that I paid less for my DF them I would get here for a Lych pledge, if you were backing a new DF KS, I expect you'll pay more then here, but with a lot more choice in parts.

Cergorach wrote:
Do you print one page at a time? If so, I can understand you assumption.

You can fill up the build plate and let it print. Even if your printing ground tiles, you can print them on their side (more tiles on the build plate).

To be fair there is nothing worse than having a full plate of items, being 48 hours into a 72 hour print job and something messes up. Instead of usually losing or having an issue with one piece. I usually do smaller jobs, based on when I will be around the printer, because stacking the build plate doesn't decrease print time. If I'm away for 4 hours, I set up a 4-hour print, if I'm away for the night for 12 hours then I set up a 12-hour print job. It leaves less time or issues, not to mention not all printers are the same as some people have discovered from fires and inexpensive 3d printers.

ced1106 wrote:
I already mentioned that a miniature takes one hour. Does it still take this long for a game tile?

This is why I love DLP printers. ^_^ One miniature takes me 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the size of miniature, resolution and how I orientate it. Unless you use a jewelers loupe, visually, no one could tell the difference between something printed at 25um vs 42um. Printing 20 of the same miniature, takes exactly the same amount of time because it prints 1 complete layer at a time unlike FDM/FFF and SLA printers.

Even SLA printers are great. One miniature taking about 1-2 hours on an SLA doesn't mean 10 takes 10-20 hours. It doesn't do a layer at a time, so it is slower than DLP but much faster than FDM/FFF printers but uses a similar method of printing with the laser curing instead of a projecting a full layer. As an example a set of 3 miniatures taking 3h51min when printing 18 of them (6 sets of 3) it takes 7h20mins instead of 23h6mins that it would with FDM/FFF.

I wouldn't really consider a 72 hour printjob unless it's a single item. But there's a huge gap between 2.5 hour print jobs and 72 hours 4-8 hour jobs during the day, 8-12 hour prints during the night. Might do longer if I need to go out for the day (but first need to install Octoprint, a webcam, a smoke connector, connect the remote power manager and possible a remote triggerable foam bomb ;-).

While there are many great things about DLP/SLA printing, the resin isn't one of them. It's pretty messy (less so if you can afford something like a Form 2 with a cleaning/curing station) and quite expensive in materials. Making 28-32mm terrain in DLP/SLA resin I wouldn't recommend. Depending on the material, it will probably be more fragile then PLA as well. for minis and smaller scale vehicles it's ace! You might even do larger pieces as masters for resin casting...

> This is why I love DLP printers
> Even SLA printers are great.

Sweet. Looking forward to lower prices in the hopefully near future! https://all3dp.com/1/best-resin-dlp-sla-3d-printer-kit-stereolithography/

The Rampage KS scratches the surface of the PrintableScenery products, so, sure, I'll play with both injection mold and printed plastics!