Pixel Board

Changes:

2023-10-15: Fixed the case which had incosistent edge.

___

PixelBoard is, as the name implies, a board that you can put 3D printed small squares aka “pixels” in and use it as a decorative piece, the board is 24 pixels wide and 12 pixels tall. The compact overall design fits on pretty much every printer, including Prusa Mini. If you're wondering what kind of designs can be made with pixels and a board of this size, scroll down to the bottom for some design examples.

I recently found a similar model to this, and I noticed it had a few design flaws - but due to its licensing which didn't allow any modifications (remixes), I couldn't make any improvements to it - so I made an entirely new project from scratch over the weekend, and you can remix, share, and adapt it in any way you want - STEP files are included as well!

Since it's literally designed over the weekend and not used over a longer period, if you have any improvement suggestions, feel free to make a remix or to comment.

It's designed from the ground up for FDM printing, no supports, or anything similar required. It makes (optional, but recommended) use of 6x3mm magnets to hold the board firmly in the case, and the case itself doubles as a storage - and can hold more than 4 times the number of pixels required to fill the entire board, all in 4 different compartments, so you don't have to search through piles of different pixels to find the color you want.

I have printed all the files on my X1C using generic 0.2mm settings with different filaments I had lying around, but please before you print everything at once, see below for print instructions and fit test models.

Required materials:

• Optional: four 6x3mm magnets. These will hold the board extremely well in place, so much so that I had to design a push pin to push the board from the back, this is ideal since the box doubles as storage, and you don't want to have 1000+ pins accidentally drop on the floor.
• 3D Printer with at least 165mm bed size width - Prusa Mini can fit and print this.

Parts and print settings

Board

The board is printed using default settings of 0.2mm or lower, but there is no significant benefit of printing lower than 0.2. It requires no additional settings or anything else. Just make sure you're printing this with a dry filament to avoid any stringing which may lead to pixels not fitting quite well afterward.

Pins

The Pins are all 5x5mm for the cube part, as the tolerances for this are built into the board directly, but the diameter of the cylinder part may vary from printer to printer, and based on what kind of fit you want. I've included the pins with the cylinder at the following diameters: 5.00mm, 4.98mm, 4.96mm, 4.94mm, 4.92mm, and 4.90mm. They all have the size in their name Pin500 is Pin with a diameter of 5.00mm, Pin492 with diameter of 4.92mm, and so on.

You need 288 pins to fill the whole board, I've included files with 298 pins to have some spare. If your printer bed adhesion isn't that reliable, I'd recommend printing in smaller batches instead of everything at once.

You can print these in 0.2mm layer heights as well. No brim is required, and if you use it then it might be difficult to remove afterward.

So, how do you know which pin size to print?

Fit Test Files

I've included a small 3x3 test board, print this, and all different pins and see which one fits best. If none of the pins fit, then you can, of course, use the scale feature of the slicer to adjust it, or modify the step files, but it means that your printer isn't quite accurate enough and this may lead to other issues as well. Use the same filament and same settings that you will use later on.

For me personally, Pin498 fits the best.

Case

The case requires no supports and is designed to be printed this way. You can use any layer height that you want. 0.2 layer height produces nice results, and especially with some sanding, can be pretty. There are no major structural demands here, other than the magnets that are held in place.

Magnets/PushPin

If you decide to use magnets, you can put them in the side of the case, as well as the board, so they hold when the board is in place. There should be enough clearance to do a simple press fit for the magnets, bit if they keep falling out just add a drop of superglue.

However, these magnets can be pretty strong, and getting the board out - when it's full of pins, can be very difficult, so I've designed a pin that goes from the front of the case to the back - make sure to put this in BEFORE you put the board in. The pins are pretty small, only 5 mm and barely noticeable, due to the small size, you'll need something to push them in from the back. If you don't want to deal with that, and you don't mind compromising on the design, there's also a long push pin version, this will stick out on the back 20mm and allow you to push it with your finger easily. Print both and try it out.

The pins can be printed either way, and you don't need infill for them - 2 or 3 walls should do the trick.

I printed mine in this orientation, so I get a smoother back-side finish. But this is up to you and how well your bed adhesion is. You can use brim on this to ensure it prints properly.

Assembly

The assembly is pretty straightforward:

• Put the push pin in the case so you don't forget it.
• Add magnets to the case and the board - make sure to orient them correctly
• Done

Design examples

Besides the example image above, there are numerous designs that fit on a 24x12 board, here are some examples - and often you can even fit two of these on the board, or scale them down/up as you wish, as they don't use the entire space by themselves

These screenshots come from https://www.brik.co/pages/gallery-search?q.size.height.min&q.size.height.max=12&q.size.width.max=24&q.size.width.min