Publish or Perish D6 Die

I… may… have this problem. Whether it’s needing to have 3D printer filament in every possible color just in case, drawers full of paper and vinyl for the craft cutter (but someday I might want to make birthday cards!), a pile of unused test materials and potentially-interesting-someday CNC bits (just have to have a free weekend to spend experimenting with feeds and speeds), or the electronics parts that are threatening to turn my basement into a Digi-Key warehouse (nothing worse than being in the middle of a project and not having the right n-channel MOSFET)… it will only get worse when I have a laser as yet another excuse to speculatively acquire supplies for it.

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I was JUST discussing with my wife that we need to establish a personal materials budget. That is to say, that materials we use on items to sell have no limit, but for personal use we need one. If we don’t, well, I can’t afford the habit we’re about to suffer.

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If you were to tell me that this is how all of my papers were evaluated I would 100% believe you. Hilarious idea!

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I forgot to mention that the inspiration for this project was the recent unveiling of a monument to peer review in Moscow:

Their version only had five options for obvious reasons, so I added “Open Access!” :wink:

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I’m very excited :grinning:, just to imagine that I could make dice for everything, what I eat, where to go, who pays the bill hahaha I would not have to decide anything :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I’m totally making a “where to eat” set… that’s a great idea

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and for the spouses of folks like your brother: “I choose an Academic life.” not an easy path…

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Looks like an excellent result. I’m definitely going to doing some dice once the GF comes in.

where do you get the dice?

My daughter likes to make games, so if we can create custom dice, she is going to go ballistic. but in a good way. :slight_smile:

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These were sourced on Amazon: http://a.co/ceqOmch

I specifically went with the 25mm (1 inch) dice for increased visability and “real estate” for engraving. They are cheaper in bulk, but as this was an initial test for a limited run, I thought it was a reasonable deal.

Btw, since these are > 0.5", the crumb tray must be removed, so there’s a bit of math needed to get the engraving face back into the focus zone as well as setting the exact focus distance. It took a few ceramic tiles I had handy to shim the die up for proper focus.

In case folks haven’t seen it, Henry did a fantastic writeup of the calculation / shimming process not too long ago:

I wanted a visual cheat sheet as a quick reminder why the magic number is 1.4", so threw this together:

Yes, the PRU focus range seems to be ~0.4", but I’m planning for the future… :wink:

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Thanks!

that sound you hear? Daughter double prime going ballistic. :slight_smile:

Chris

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Check out my thread on doing custom dice using the PRU. Read through the thread because there are some tips and things (including some techniques to color them with inks) further down in the comments/responses.

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Thank you so much!

This is great! :smile:
I know some professors here who would love to have one of these!

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This gives me an idea. I need to find blank LOADED dice, and then imprint on the favored side of the die whatever is the choice you want to come up regularly. For example, a die that has options for everything to do over the weekend…chores, go shopping with wife, visit in-laws, etc. etc., make stuff on GF. Guess which side will always turn up.

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Getting to this thread WAY late… but why didn’t you just stack one die on top of another to get the surface into cutting range?

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  1. The air assist is strong enough to blow each die around, so the jig holds then tight.

  2. I didn’t think of it. :slight_smile:

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Cool! (Just stuck a link to that into the Matrix. Let me know if you don’t want it there.) :sunglasses:

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About to place an order for some blanks and add to our Story Dice collection. So good to know that I want to be wary of the air assist.

I made my first jig out of foamcore (DTFB) and used it for multiple runs, but I noticed that one of the holes has loosened and was letting one die rotate about 10° back and forth. :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Next version will be cheap ply or scrap acrylic.

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