3D Printable Settlers of Catan Tiles

Posted as an assignment from Louisiana Tech.

For 1 tile:

- 12X 1x3mm magnets

- 24g PLA filament

- Super glue

- Primer

- Paint

Because of the method of fabrication, we can afford to make these tiles much more intricate and add details which would be more difficult on other forms of manufacturing, such as laser cutting. Details such as the raised 'ring' around the resource texture, as well as the various recesses on the part make these parts much more satisfying to view and use. Each tile has 2 holes per side, each 3.5mm in diameter, 1mm deep. These holes will allow for magnets to be attached later on.

These parts have been designed entirely within Fusion 360, a program I previously had no experience in. However, the interface proved to be very intuitive and the different tiles took relatively little time to design.

Because I wanted to be able to print these parts quickly, I refrained from adding small details to the tiles and opted for simple textures to represent each resource.

These parts were printed using Cura slicer and HatchBox 1.75mm Red PLA at 0.3mm layer height. The 'brick' tiles were the first to be printed, and suffered from slight under-extrusion.

Attached below are the STL files for each resource type, along with a blank tile if a different texture is needed.

Each side on the tiles needs 2 magnets inserted, each with a different pole exposed. It is very important that each tile side maintains the same north/south pole pattern or else they will not be attracted to each other. A small drop of super glue in the 3.5mm side hole is all that is needed to keep the magnets in place.

After the magnets have been added, the pieces need to be primed. For these tiles I used Rust-Oleum 2-in-1 Filler and Sandable Primer. After priming, the textures can be colored with any choice of paints.