guppy
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 202
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Post by guppy on Jun 11, 2016 20:11:35 GMT
This is in part a reply to DMG info #109 video He makes a slight mistake here that "locks" his pieces - for instance the turn piece can't be reversed to be come a right turn any more. ( I should know because I initially made the same mistake my self ) The Trick is have both polarities on each end - using magnetic tape simply cut the tape in half and rotate one piece 180* do this for all lengths of the tile that can connect to another ( for most designs everything but walls ) like so; Positive / negative polarity doesn't really matter - just be consistent and use an existing piece as a test piece when putting in new magnets. This means that no matter how you turn the tile it will always be compatible with like tiles. I used small neodymium magnets in the above but the idea is the same. To take the whole magnet thing one step further I also basecoat my tiles with a magnet paint, this allows anything magnetic to stick rather firmly to the tile and keeps even tall strucktures from getting knocked over quite so easily. This is illustrated below with the book case that would topple over at the slightest provocation with out a larger base or the magnet tape ( last two shots are a collaboration with my 5 year old son, hence the water colour ) Anyway I hope this was useful to somebody - if not, well this is the internet; feel free to ignore the post entirely
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Post by fantascientist on Jun 12, 2016 19:28:40 GMT
I've thought about using magnetic paint as a base coat, but I find the paint a little too expensive (~20 EUR for 0.5 liter). I do use small neodymium magnets on the bottom of my tiles, and I play on a small magnetic whiteboard. This way I only need 1 magnet per tile, and the tiles won't move around so much.
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guppy
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 202
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Post by guppy on Jun 13, 2016 7:27:32 GMT
I've thought about using magnetic paint as a base coat, but I find the paint a little too expensive (~20 EUR for 0.5 liter). I do use small neodymium magnets on the bottom of my tiles, and I play on a small magnetic whiteboard. This way I only need 1 magnet per tile, and the tiles won't move around so much. Neat idea with the whiteboard, can't imagine it's very handy to move that about tho. As for the price of the paint - I got a 250ml bottle for ~9 EUR and I've barely used any of it. The instructions calls for up to 3 layers for the proper effect, but I use found that even one layer thinned quite a bit with water will work just fine when the magnets do not have to fight gravity. And you need to water it down as the paint is very, very think and could obscure details otherwise. Also having to make less tiles because I can use magnetic walls instead of making specific pieces kind of offsets the cost a bit I think
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Post by fantascientist on Jun 13, 2016 10:45:18 GMT
The whiteboard I got is only ~ 40 cm x 60 cm, and it weighs about nothing. The PHB is probably heavier. I prefer to only have a few rooms on the table simultaneously anyways, so the size is not an issue for me.
I hadn't thought that you would need so little paint. If I ever decide to make a new set of tiles (just finished my first set), I will definitely be looking into that.
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Post by skunkape on Jun 13, 2016 17:02:03 GMT
Another way to handle magnets is put a magnet in one corner, for instance anywhere on the above image that has a + sign, then put a nail or other piece of metal in the - corner. Then it won't matter what polarity the magnet is set, because it only has to connect with a piece of metal. Reason I suggest nails is they will be easy to attach to the base.
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guppy
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 202
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Post by guppy on Jun 14, 2016 7:50:34 GMT
Another way to handle magnets is put a magnet in one corner, for instance anywhere on the above image that has a + sign, then put a nail or other piece of metal in the - corner. Then it won't matter what polarity the magnet is set, because it only has to connect with a piece of metal. Reason I suggest nails is they will be easy to attach to the base. See now I spent ages looking for thin metallic discs that were magnetic for precisely this reason, I finally gave up and decided to instead make a test pieces to make sure I got polarity the same every time.. Feel kind of stupid for not realizing that nails would work - wonder if those flat paper tacks are ferromagnetic. One thing to conciser tho is that if you have random polarity stacking the tiles will be a challenge, still using half the magnets could cut down cost a bit.
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Post by skunkape on Jun 14, 2016 13:31:45 GMT
Never thought about issues with stacking the tiles, but hopefully because the polarity is on a horizontal plane and not a vertical plane the stacking issue will be minimal. I would imagine you could use thumb tacks, provided they're made of a ferris material!
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