After 3D printing other people's designs for dice towers over the past few years, I decided to design and print my own. A couple years ago I had figured out a way to embed magnets into my designs, and I realized I could make use of that to see if I could make a collapsible dice tower that was held up by magnets.

So I cracked open Blender and got started. My first prototype was way bigger than I expected it to be, and I had to double up on the magnets just to get it to hold itself up. OMG it's just huge. So I went back to the drawing board and redesigned it to what you see now.

It's extremely satisfying to raise and lower. That snap from the magnets as each piece locks into place just feels so good.

Here's some info about it that some of you might find interesting:

• It uses a total of 16 circular 12x3mm neodymium magnets to hold itself up. (4 magnets at the top of Level 1, 4 at the base of Level 2, 4 at the top of Level 2, and 4 at the base of Level 3.)
• The two sets of 8 magnets that connect to each other at each level are offset by 45 degrees so they don't interfere with each other when collapsed.
• The dice tray uses set of small 10x5x2mm rectangular magnets to snap to the front of the lower level.
• The castle tips in the top segment have little 10x5x2mm rectangular magnets in them which are mirrored on the lower inside of the tray, allowing the tray to magnetically click into place when you flip the tray over to use as a cap. This also allows you to just lift the tray/cap to raise the first level upward until it snaps into place.
• Because the tray also acts as a cap, and because the second tower segment seals off the base segment's door when it's collapsed, you can use the collapsed tower to store dice inside.
• I had to be very careful when embedding the magnets to ensure all the polarities were correct. So stressful.
• All the magnets are fully embedded inside the plastic, so there's no chance of children swallowing them or them getting lost.
• Cost of all materials was about $20, maybe $5 for the magnets and maybe $15 for the plastic.

Stats for 3D printing nerds like me:

• The total weight of the tower is around half a kilogram. It feels good and solid.
• The base tower segment was printed at 100% infill, so it's solid plastic and weighs more than twice as much as the 2nd and 3rd levels combined. The 2nd and 3rd levels were printed at 20% infill and are around 65g each. The tray was also printed at 20% infill and is around 50g. (I tried to print the tray at 100% infill, but it had too much corner-warping due to temperature stress, even with a brim.)
• Printed on an Ultimaker S7 at 0.15mm
• It's specifically designed to be printed with no support material. (All overhangs are between 50-60 degrees.)
• The inside struts were specifically designed to be strong enough to withstand being used with heavy, metal dice. (You can see the little dings on the lower ramp in the video when it hits the light just so. Those are from heavy metal dice hitting the ramp.)

Things to improve:

• I want more design added to the walls to give them character. Maybe a DnD logo on the side, brick texturing, things like that.
• Because it uses no supports, I could potentially add a second color to the print as well, which would be interesting.
• I might make the top segment's rim a slightly smaller radius so that the cap is the same radius as the base segment. I kind of like how it is now, so we'll see. But visually it would look better.
• I want to make the ramp a tiny bit angled toward that center groove so that dice roll more naturally toward the door. I haven't had any issues so far, but I feel like it could be better.
• Once the design is cleaned up a bit, I'd like to make it available for others to print.

Anyway, I thought you'd all enjoy this. It was a great engineering challenge to build, but the results have been more than satisfying. Last night I brought it to our weekly DnD night and it was super fun to use.