A Vast Underestimation

11.30.2025

I previously mentioned that I started (3D) printing the Heroboard modular board for Heroquest. It's also been the project to help dial-in the new printer. As such, it's not 100% optimum printing and cranking through everything. Additionally, I don't really know what the minimum I need to print for the game is, as I've yet to actually play it. I do have a "this should cover everything" list to print, which is what I'm working off.

Within that list, I'm working in phases. The first are the under-tiles, the bases that magnetically lock everything together. Effectively, the foundation. After that are the side-walls for those tiles, to cosmetically cover the magnets that aren't being used. Next up is "hallway" floor tiles. These I'm printing as individual floor tiles as the rooms are pre-joined with however many spaces a room takes up. These phases are done! I've got stacks with 502 under-tiles, 103 side-walls to cover the exterior of those under-tiles, and 168 hallway floor tiles. This took the better part of 2 months, to include bad prints as I needed some settings tweak, usually due to garage temperature and/or humidity.

Remaining are 22 room floor tiles, pre-configured based on the original game board. All of this will need walls and doors/doorways, which make up the next two phases. Here is where it makes a difference in not knowing exactly what I'll need, but instead making sure I have a worse-case usage covered. With my current high-quality print settings that use a 0.2mm nozzle, to print the remaining floors, doors, and walls will take just under 94 days if the printer runs 24/7 with no hiccups.

That's a lot of printing. Realistically, that's closer to 6 months than 3. Plus, there's other things I want to print & play around with.

While painting the Heroquest minis was my 2025 project, I thought that was originally going to include printing out the board, too. Now, at the end of November, I think I will claim my 2026 hobby project to be having the board ready for Xmas 2026. There will likely be uninteresting pics along the journey just because pics make these posts more interesting.

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I'm Alive Update: Nov 2025

11.12.2025

2 months ago I posted about finishing painting the Heroquest core set. You think in 2 months I'd have something else to post about. Well, it seems I vastly underestimated the scope of the next thing I would work on.

I mentioned Jer getting a Bambu printer and alluding to a printing project for dungeon tiles. Now I have a Bambu printer and will allude to a printing project for dungeon tiles.

I succumbed to peer pressure from Jer and Keith and (re)joined their cult of FDM printing as the Bambu A1 prints really good quality and, most importantly, is easy to setup and print each job. One of the things I've had to get past since my original foray into FDM printing is that it's ok to waste filament. Part of the aforementioned ease of the Bambu is self-cleaning and calibration available before each print job. Add in how easy it is to switch hotends, such as the fine resolution 0.2mm, and printing is easy! Dialing in those fine print details is a little more work, mainly because of how easy it is to set up those print jobs and each little tweak might make a difference I pretend I can see.

The big issue I ran into after paying attention to the first couple of batches of prints was that the corners of my prints were warping upward. Searches told me this could be either too hot (bed) temps, too cold temps, or other stuff I chose to ignore. My fix went the direction of a colder bed, lowering the hotend temp after the first few layers, and adding brims. This seemed to work fine! Until the outdoor/garage temp dipped below 60, them some random prints would either start spaghetti printing at some later point, or not adhere to the plate. This seemed to be an obvious "not hot enough" problem, so I returned to hotter temps and kept the brim. 3 days of this and things are printing ok when the garage temp drops to 47 °

Pics of random printed pieces isn't much too look at. Over the last 2 months I've printed some Sci Fi shuttle parts - about 4 times between scaling issues and refining settings. The dungeon is from Heroboard, using the larger 123% scale (larger than they recommend) and lots and lots of magnets. I've just started printing hallway floor tiles, which at the resolution and rate will take minimum of a week if the printer ran constantly. After that are room tiles (11 days minimum) and walls/doors (don't know). While my 2025 hobby goal was to paint the Heroquest minis, I secretly wanted to have the dungeon printed and together too. That latter ain't going to happen.

I've got another batch of Cyberpunk minis primed. Soon I'll have some pics of those trickling onto the site.

Permalink 3D Printer HeroQuest rambling

HeroQuest - Core Set Good Guys

09.16.2025

The wrap up to this year's painting goal of finishing the Hero Quest core set can now be checked off. The 4 good guys and evil dungeon master stand-in are now painted. As an extra challenge, I tried to stick close to the card are for each one. I think all of these qualify for a decent tabletop quality paint job. Zoom in a little and you can tell where there's still work that needs to be done better.

With that, the overall Hero Quest project isn't complete. Magnetically linked 3D printed dungeon tiles are still on the to-do list. Will they get to-done by the end of the year? Dunno. I've been playing with some new 3D printing - BambuLab A1 FDM printer, even though I've got 2 resin printers (still in their boxes) that have been sitting around for up to a couple of years. Originally the dungeon tiles were intended to pawn off on Jer and his fresh Bambu printer. Should I join in on the printing there?

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