Building the Ultimate D&D Table(TTRPG): Part 2- Hidden Dice Tower Upgrade!

hello and welcome to building the ultimate dnd table part two today i'll be taking the hidden dice towers and upgrading them to level seven [Music] here's my original design for hidden dice towers very happy with them except they don't always pop up perfectly and sometimes they don't seat perfectly and there's a little lip the other issue i have with them is that when they're open the cover kind of gets in the way of your hand they could also just overall be more attractive so i decided to do something really wild and crazy and that is actually plan what i'm about to build next i taught myself how to use fusion 360 and from there designed what i wanted for my dice tower i knew that in order to fix the alignment issues i would have to get rid of the spring loaded push to release type method and replace it with a solid alignment base of course with the tower sitting completely flush with the table this would then make it impossible to get it back out thus the idea for the soda can pull tab was born i printed out the first prototype of the top using a very cheap pla printer my wife had bought this printer on sale about a month ago and i don't think either of us had actually used it up to this point i was concerned that printing the swing arms wouldn't be strong enough so i actually cut some on the mill out of aluminum as for the sides of the case i wanted them to be cut out of wood i asked our good friend hoku props to cut some on his laser cutter he didn't have any wood only acrylic and i said that sounds cool after peeling off every little piece of paper from every little piece of acrylic i thought it was a little less cool but hey i still appreciate it thanks hoku well with all the parts either printed bought or cut it was time to assemble the first prototype cue the music [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so here we are with my original design and what's meant to be mark two now i'm very happy with the top and i don't think i'll change that very much pop top works great and when it centers itself down it's really well aligned and it doesn't move around but once you open it things quickly go pear-shaped there's all kinds of fitment issues some of the screws are banging into the sides there's all this extra space i need to leave this space to accommodate for these bars but it's super sloppy i'm going to have to redesign a lot of this in order to make sure that it sits comfortably it slides up and down smoothly and to make sure that it holds its position once it's open i think this is a great start but it's time to go back to the drawing boards for mark 3 i redesigned it so that the case and the tower fit together much more snugly i also needed to design a way for the tower to stay in its full upright position and i took the advice from hoku props and i designed this sort of flexible stop device i printed out more parts this time i used the resin printer in hopes of getting a much smoother surface finish all right with all the parts printed for mark iii now i just need to cut new sides to the case but i don't have a laser cutter so it would obviously make sense to take orders and get money together before i spend a bunch of money on a machine or to cut these dice towers but that's not what this show is called so i bought a laser cutter more paper tape fighting me [Music] freaking laser beams and with the laser cutter set up i had to export new drawings put them into light burn and fire up the system one more big piece of paper tape and finally gotcha so pretty excited for how this looks so far but all the parts are much too loose i want them to fit together snugly so i think i can just adjust the kerf uh which means that it'll cut on the outside of the line instead of on the center and then hopefully that'll make everything more snug so do another test piece maybe i'll use wood this time the laser cutter cuts wood quite nicely however i think i'm going to put it on the back burner for now once you get it all together problem with the wood is you got burns all along the edges which kind of leaves this ugly finish which is not easy to sand off so for now i'll continue cutting them out of acrylic and turn my attention to the next big problem the pins that hold the tower open which i've been calling a flex stop doesn't seem to flex in quite the right way also i'd printed out the original prototype out of pla which turned out to be a tiny bit brittle i redesigned and printed another one using resin with a little bit of tenacity additive this helps add both flexibility and strength unfortunately the part that i printed out was both flexible and strong but it failed to flex properly with the main problem being that when you push the button it doesn't move in a linear fashion and so it gets twisted and cramped so i went back to the drawing board and made a new prototype and then another new prototype and then another new prototype and well [Applause] about six designs later i did actually come up with something that worked pretty well it wasn't perfect and i had to redesign that about three more times but that's okay because finished product it does actually function [Applause] well i'd printed enough prototypes at this point that i'd run out of the correct color of gray but i printed another one anyway and as you can see [Music] so [Music] [Music] here it is a proof of concept that actually works the button works properly it sits where it should it goes up and down everything functions and i am pumped now i don't want to call this a finished prototype because it still has a lot of things i need to fix a lot of the tolerances are wrong it's hard to get the top on the alignment base here which is actually supposed to be here uh it doesn't work right now because it's too tight and so the buttons get stuck so i need to change that put a little bevel on it i need to add mounting holes so i can put the screws and actually attach it to a piece of wood and other than that just a lot of little things that won't change the overall design and thus won't cause more problems nine with my proficiency i'll take that one of the other issues that i did not mention is that when you print something on a resin printer the first base layer has to get burned in a lot longer than the other layers this causes more spread and something called the elephant's foot because of the straight line geometry of this project i'm forced to print it straight up and down and this causes that elephant's foot to appear on some of the mating surfaces requiring me to then sand it all off so i corrected for that and thus no sanding also up until this point none of these prototypes have been glued together once i've gotten the laser cutter dialed in everything actually snapped together and would hold and function as a prototype without any glue so now is the first time i'm actually finishing an assembled project and gluing it together [Music] while the glue is drying i can cut an installation hole into this piece of wood this is a leftover leaf from the gaming table in order to avoid the saw knocking a bunch of chips out of the edges i cut a deep score around the edge using a razor knife before then drilling and using a jigsaw to finish the hole next i cleaned up the outside edges using this power sander but honestly just a block of wood with sandpaper on it will be better [Music] thread locker is required on most of the screws because if you were to tighten them all the way down the arms would not be able to pivot and adding a little bit of lube is always a good idea [Music] next up it's time to install the dice tower into the table top need a couple of basic tools one of which is in fact a deck of playing cards you can use these to space out the dice tower and make sure it's perfectly centered i can now glue the mounting screws into the appropriate hole i made three hole options available in case you have um thicker wood now to make sure that the dice tower is centered again properly and then it's time to install the screws the four screws that mount the dice tower to the table should really only be installed once because wood gets weaker every time you loosen it the other four are metal on metal screws which means they can be loosened and then readjusted if it needs further alignment [Music] i added some tiny legs to my tiny table top and here we are [Music] now as you can see the dice towers are done but they are not installed in the actual gaming table there's two reasons for that first of all after making all kinds of modifications and changes and going through literally seven different models of this it ended up a little bit smaller than it started and thus a little bit smaller than what's in the table so can't really make the hole in the table any smaller i'm gonna have to make some special like modified ones that will fit perfectly in the table now the second reason why these are not installed in the gaming table is because they are installed in this tiny and adorable display table why do i need that well so i can take them places and display them go down below the video and check out the description and i will keep you posted and updated on if i'm going to be at any convention soon or places where you can spot me and check these things out in person or maybe you just want to order one there should also be a link down there for you can place an order and i'll keep that updated as well because that may change over time well that's all for today's episode thanks for watching and don't forget to hit subscribe so you can see more nerd builds as well as the total over complication of games that are supposed to take place entirely within your imagination catch you next time

Channel: More Tools Than Sense

Views: 187,121

Keywords: dungeons and dragons, dice tower, how to build a dice tower, gaming table, dnd table, d&d table, gaming table build, how to, build a dice tower, 3d printing, dungeons & dragons, dice tray, make your own dice tower, d&d table build, d&d table with screen, d&d table with tv, dnd table with tv

Id: YGFx15JaCdE

Length: 12min 3sec (723 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022