bss's Printable Dice Tray
A 3D-printable dice tray with a center area for rolling dice and sections around the ring of the tray for organizing said dice.
About
This project is a parameterized OpenSCAD project that produces dice trays of the desired geometric shape and size with just a couple parameter changes, suitable for 3D printing. The tray comes with ample storage space to store sets of seven standard poly dice, and a friction-fit lid to carry the dice and tray around without an immediate risk of spilling them everywhere. It's available under the GPLv3 and free for use. (See Attribution, below.)
Printing
The tray and lid are both to be printed flat side down. My preferred settings, that lead to a decently sturdy tray that doesn't sound too hollow, are:
- Bottom surface pattern: Hilbert curve (especially for the lid)
- Sparse infill density: 25%
- Sparse infill pattern: gyroid
- Wall loops: 3
You shouldn't need any post-processing on the pieces.
Building
A tray-and-lid build needs no additional parts; in my testing, the friction fit on the lid is reasonably good enough to keep it closed and not suffer from too much jostling, though I wouldn't carry it around upside down with no support. It should be fine thrown into a backpack or similar, though. Additional field experience or results from others is welcome.
The build comes with pieces for a cutting guide for the inner area, in the event you want to cut some felt or foam or whatever for where you'll be rolling your dice.
Parameters
The parameters of the build are configured to allow for as many sets of seven standard poly dice (e.g. Chessex sets) as
will fit along the outer edge of the rolling area. In many cases, that leads to five storage areas evenly spaced across
the outer edge of the tray, though the models are constrained by the 256mm^2 bed I use to print --- a larger bed allows
for larger models, which allows for more compartments. Changing the size for your purposes is a simple tweak to
build.py, or contact me and I'll get a parameterized size added to the build script.
The number of faces of the tray is parameterized to the point that the build script generates symmetric shapes for 4 through 8 faces, and also a 100 "side" (essentially a circle) shape.
Development, Contributing, and Feedback
Improvements, variants, new layouts, novel ideas, and etc. are all welcome.
The source code is suitable for previewing and rendering in OpenSCAD. The files may also work in FreeCAD and perhaps other software, but they are developed in OpenSCAD, so YMMV otherwise.
This project is hosted at my personal Git site.
I'm reachable on the fediverse (@bss@ill.moe), over email (bss@incorporeal.org), or on my IRC network, Randomus (#bss-printable-dice-tray) if you would like a place to hang out and discuss issues and features and whatnot.
Attribution
Author and Licensing
Written by and copyright Brian S. Stephan (bss@incorporeal.org).
bss's Printable Dice Tray is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
bss's Printable Dice Tray is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with bss's Printable Dice Tray. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Distributing These Dice Trays
Under the terms of the GPLv3, you must inform the receiver of the "object code" of their rights under the GPLv3. This is a bit of a gray area for physical objects, but likely applies to distribution of modified or unmodified STL, STEP, etc. files at a minimum. The easiest way to satisfy the GPLv3 in either situation is to provide a link to the source code (either the unmodified mainline project, or your copy, with modifications listed in a "prominent notice"); something like the below should suffice in either electronic or printed form:
This dice tray is part of bss's Printable Dice Tray, version X.Y.Z; the source code to this program is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, at [LINK].