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The 3d Design and manufacture company Digital Taxidermy has a brand new 3D printable modular terrain system releasing next week on Kickstarter.

The system uses old spools as the structure and allows you to use minimal plastic to create facades that will turn them into Sci-Fi towers, energy generators and more.
It includes industrial, gothic and fantasy themes and provides a way to recycle the rather substantial waste spools that are left over from 3d printing.

The system is very reminiscent of the old Necromunda multi-level terrain system but with a much wider variety of styles and options.

The system comes complete with ladders bridges and ramps to interconnect you towers. There are greebles and more for you to decorate it any way you please

The best bit and the bit i know you will all be interested in is they have also incorporated lighting into it. The lighting is designed to suite the cheap LED light strings you can buy on eBay and allows you to add some real atmosphere to any game board.

It starts on Kickstarter next Friday and has early bird deals for those that get in there from the start.

As an added bonus they are also producing their own Sci-Fi stories to add background and flavor to their models, you can find one such story and more details of this fantastic construction system by following the link below.

https://www.digitaltaxidermy.co.uk/blog/post/nucleus-of-outrage-flash-fiction-and-kickstarter-preview-3d-printed-scenery/

Just got into 3D printing with an Ender 3, already run one spool out and was looking at ways to use it. Glad I have t cut it up for a revolving paint rack yet. Will be watching in anticipation. Subscribed . I’ll also post a link to this in my 3D blog in P&Ms.

Thanks for your support, sorry I am new here. apologies if i am not using the reply properly

We have given this system alot of thought as it ddoesn't take long to have a spool mountain and that really is the question...what do you do with them.
I hope you are enjoying your 3D printing adventure, if you ever need help or advice jump over to our facebook group and i am usually available to chat too....sleep is something i have almost had to give up lately Lol

This is like a cool idea, but every company has different spools and I've never seen one that was just featureless flat discs...?

The LED arrangement was really nicely done! Illuminating the terrain piece instead of being a misplaced bright star in the middle of a construction.

I have a couple.of plain flat ones, but many do have gaps of various types. This is a good starter though and the gaps can be easily filled by sticking some sheet materials between the spools.

Thank-you for all your responses, the fact that you have taken the time to look makes it all worth it.

So as a few of you have observed the spools do come in all shapes and sizes, in the presentation we do give you a basic standard size we have been working from and we have found a small variance in the spools we have been using. You are also correct in that this variance can cause issues so when we release these there will be a detailed set of instructions on how you can alter the models to suit your spools, we have given this very careful consideration and we think we have covered most options that you will face with the common spools on the market.

you can find a chart here http://thrinter.com/empty-spool-weights/ that shows a large range of spool makes and sizes, you will see most are very similar. Unfortunately there will be some spools that this just wont work for but there is not alot we can do about that unfortunately. To give you an ide though for a wider outer diameter the edge pieces can be scaled to suit relatively easily, if you find that your spool is thinner than 55mm then there are two options, either you can scale the height of the panels to the correct height to suit or you sink it through your build plate cutting off a small bit of the panel but maintaining the detail of the panel. for spools that are taller we will be including a skirting block that can be scaled up with detail that shouldn't distort too badly. this should allow to fit spools with most 'heights' between the flanges.

for the inner diameter the panels have some clearance from the centre of the spool and have some overlap to allow them to expand slightly to suit.
The bridges, walkways, steps and railings that clip onto the spools all have extra room between the jaws to allow part of the clip to be filed away to enable it to fit thicker rims.

If you have any further questions on compatibility or suggest any spools you would like them to fit then i would be happy to discuss your needs however there is only a limited amount we can get done prior to the ickstarter.

I hope this clears things up a little bit, we are now test printing a set of free facades for "ye olde taxidermy shopee" that will be available to download from our website on monday evening, this will give you a chance to print them out for yourself and see if the system works for you.

now added free files yo come check them out https://www.digitaltaxidermy.co.uk/free-spool-tower-test-stl-files-ye-olde-taxidermee-shoppee-fantasy-building.html

Your checkout page doesn’t have three “required lines” labeled. They are for address, but took me a minute to figure it out.

Just started a large print. It might empty a spool , then I’ll give these a shot.