Snap-Fit Dodecahedron Tiles

Tiles that form a dodecahedron when you snap 12 of them together; shows off print surface texture.
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updated January 27, 2023

Description

PDF

I made a diffraction grating print surface and wanted to print something that would show off the rainbow patterns on all exposed faces, so I designed this. The size is a bit arbitrary. I just went for something that would fit all twelve tiles on my Voron v0 bed, since it's the first one I made a diffraction surface for. Other textured surfaces also look good, since this is really just a way to show off a textured bed surface.

Print Settings

There's not much to it. I suggest printing two tiles first (at .2mm) to make sure they fit together without too much force. If they don't fit (or you have to push really hard) then you can lower your extrusion multiplier or scale the tiles up a bit larger. The main thing to remember is you don't have much leverage when snapping the last few tiles together, so you'll never get them together if the fit is too tight.

Once you've got the right settings for a good fit, just print 12 and snap them all together.

Bottom Infill Patterns

One thing worth mentioning is how I got the “infill” pattern in the picture. The trick is that it's not actually infill; it's all perimeters. I created two height range modifiers to achieve the effect and still get a solid shell:

  •  0-0.2mm: Layers and Perimeters ➝ Perimeters = 35
  • 0.2-0.8mm: Infill➝ Solid infill every = 1 (layers)

That stated, some of the other bottom infill patterns look quite nice, and don't require height range modifiers.

Model origin

The author marked this model as their own original creation.

License