Sectioned Chessboard (magnetic)

Last crawled date: 4 years, 3 months ago

Designed for a family member.
(The chess pieces pictured are RoPa's spiral chess set with hollow basehttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1264417
modified to have a magnet in the center bottom. This is also a remix of the original by BigBadBison:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:470700
The hollow version can let you add weights or magnets, the original will just be a straight up print).
I looked at the various chess board ideas there were and thought I should contribute as they didn't quite look the way I wanted. Mainly that the board could be set up quickly and that there weren't too many fiddly parts (like say, assembling the entire thing like a puzzle). I stuck on magnets for my attach methods and then had to design it so it could be two color.
So, there are two quadrants, A and B. You print two of each. Then depending on if you printed the large base in white (or light color) or the tiles, you set the orientation of the board. The tiles should be the opposite color from the base. You'll need 32 tiles, and four (two of each) quadrants. The tiles get superglued to the base quadrant (shown in assembly in the pictures).
Magnets needed:
32 - 5x4mm disc magnets, preferably N50-N52
If you're going to magnetize the pieces and make use of the holes in the tiles:
32pieces+64spaces (96 total) - 6x2mm disc magnets preferably N50-52
To use the magnets, you'll need them all oriented the same. It doesn't matter if you pick North or South, but if you take a stack of magnets, pick one side. Then mark it with a sharpie. Slide it off, drop it, whatever (it'll probably stick to the end of the stick), and mark the next one in line, careful to always mark the same side.
So, when/if you magnetize pieces, you want the pieces and the tiles/spaces to have the same orientation (say, marked side "up" when assembled and in use. That means when you insert it from the bottom, you have to put the up side in first.
When you magnetize the board segments, separate the A and B quadrants. To each of the As, use 8 magnets, all oriented the same way (say, marked side in towards the board). To all the Bs, use 8 magnets all oriented the opposite way of the As (so in this example, all the marked sides away from the board).
To glue them in, I prefer gel superglue. Just add a touch to the magnet, then press in. You can also just add glue to the hole, but it's a bit messier. To help in magnet placement in the deeper board holes, I used punch with a plastic sleeve (mine was from an old yard sign, but you could probably use a coffee stirrer, small straw, etc). In that way (shown in the pic, put the sleeve on the punch, put the magnet on the end of the punch, then add glue to the magnet. In the picture I have marked side facing the camera (I was inserting that end in). The sleeve is to push the magnet into the hole so you can simultaneously remove the punch (otherwise the magnet will probably stick to the punch and change orientation, get removed,or get stuck). Gel superglue will also act as a gap filler and flow around the magnet in the hole. Note, in my pictures, I didn't account for the visibility that resulted from the magnets and glue filling any gaps. You may want to try painting the side of the magnet closest to the surface in a similar color (white in my case) to make it stand out less.
If you oriented the magnets right, you should only be able to attach a quadrant A to the Quadrant Bs, but not to the other A. That makes it much easier to install and setup. I show the assembly of the quadrants in the pictures.
The size should be about 210mm x 210mm which means it should print on an Ender 3/3Pro, Ender 5/5 Pro, Creality CR10/10S/10S4/10S5/10S Pro/CR-X and any "v2" versions coming on the market, and the Prussa i3.