OpenLock Clip with 3mm Ball Magnets

thingiverse

* Update 2020-06-25 Based on some feedback I received, I widened and chamfered the opening for the ball magnets. This increased contact and thus connection strength. I strongly disliked Openlock Tiles due to their locking system. I didn't want players waiting while I manually locked tiles together at the table. What I wanted was a simple drop-and-lock system. But I also wanted those cool tiles... Printable Scenery came up with the magnet system, using two 3x4 barrel magnets. I tried that and... fiddling with polarity and pushing and gluing the magnets in... It was horrible ( to me. I bet it was a blast for everyone else ). Then I found the single barrel magnet modification of the Printable Scenery one. That was better, but still problematic, as the magnet was still locked in place, and you had to watch closely not to mix up polarities. Still, this wasn't what I wanted. This is a modification of said barrel magnet clip. So I experimented with the barrel magnets and found that they're not ideal for this job. Ball Magnets would be far better suited if they could rotate freely and thus orient themselves physically in the clip. A few hours in Blender and several test prints later, I came up with the double 3mm Ball Magnet solution. Each Clip takes two 3mm Ball Magnets - you can get those easily on eBay or Amazon for a few bucks for a pack of 200 or so. Just press the magnets into the sockets. There they can slightly move and orient themselves as needed. To me, this works as I need it to. I hope you like it too. One thing you should be aware of - do not paint or coat your tiles with these clips in them. This will make the ball magnets stick and they won't be able to move freely anymore, thus rendering the clip unusable. You can learn more about OpenLock at https://www.printablescenery.com/. If you have any suggestions or problems, feel free to contact me here.