RE: 3D printed piecepack set

[<elena.valhalla@...>]

---In piecepack@yahoogroups.com, donkirkby wrote :

>  Looks nice, Elena, thanks for sharing. I was concerned that the backs of tiles and coins in 
> a 3D printed set wouldn't be consistent enough. You might begin to recognize individual 
> pieces when they are face down. Has that been a problem with your set, or was the printing 
> clean enough that they all look the same from the back?
 
 Indeed, the backs of tiles and coins are a bit different (and the hand painting of coin numbers makes them worse); if a player has enough OCD to notice unconspicuous patterns or is determined to cheat the difference is probably enough to recognize individual pieces, but while playing casually it has never been a problem (i.e. I've never recognized one). 

 The first pieces printed for each kind tend to be a bit more different than the later ones, since I've had to refine the printer settings, so by reprinting a few pieces the problem can be mitigated a bit.

I believe that a 3d printing service could provide even more consistent pieces, but I've never tried any of them, so I have no experience to back the claim.
 
jdroscha wrote:
> Was it expensive to make?

I believe I've spent about 10-15 EUR in materials (a bit less than 0.5Kg of PLA) for each set (tiles, coins, pawns, dice, saucers, pyramids), and I haven't measured how much electricity the printer consumes, so I can't estimate if it is a significant addition.

It took quite some time: printing is slow (e.g. one tile can take 30+ minutes to print, and the biggest pyramids take more than an hour), but that's time spent doing something else while the printer is working.

As for sharing: I'm a Free Software developer, so sharing is my default option, I would have needed a reason not to :)

-- 
Elena ``of Valhalla''