Magnetic Hex Bases for TTRPG

prusaprinters

I have always been frustrated at my D&D table when miniatures get jostled around on our battle map, and end up in ambiguous spaces that need to be arbitrated. So I built out a magnetic battle map using the popular NASA fabric model and designed these magnetic miniature bases for use with it. The bases are designed to fit comfortably on a 28 mm hex grid with a bit of extra room (the medium size class piece is 27 mm for instance) and have magnets embedded in the center to snap the miniature to my magnetic grid or flight towers. The design has 0.4 mm of bottom and top layers on either side of the magnet so printing at 0.2 mm allows for 2 layers. I also noticed that when using white PLA and using ironing on the top layer, the bases could be drawn on with wet erase markers and erased easily, so you could use these as tokens for spell areas, or summons like spiritual weapon which you might not have minis prepared for. Printing  Instructions:Layer Height - 0.2 mmSupports - OffInfill - 10%Pause @ layer 13 (2.6 mm) to insert magnetsThese models are simple and are pretty straight forward to print. The inner cavity has a decently wide tolerance for the magnets to fit in so I can't imagine printer settings or type causing these to fail. Just be sure to have the printer pause at the layer when the top bridge of the magnet cavity is printed.Magnets:These bases are designed for K&J D31-N52 Disc magnets (3/16'' x 1/16'', N52, Ni coated). I chose these because they are relatively small and thin, but strong enough to work well through multiple layers of plastic. At the time of posting this, they are $0.20 each. K&J also has N42 magnets for $0.17 if you want to save a bit per magnet, but I prefer the stronger ones. If you are pairing these bases with a magnetic hex grid or my magnetic flight bases, make sure all of the magnets are inserted with the correct orientation and match the polarity of your other prints. All of mine are south facing up. If you are just using magnetic steel or some other ferromagnetic substrate for your battle map, you don't have to worry about that.