Part 3: I print, I die, I print again!
The print was done! I had my first tray! My first 24 infantry would be loaded up that night and ready to go! I was ecstatic and tried really hard not to run back to my desk and check it out, I mean I had to actual work and got the second tray started. Got the tray down to my desk, but I did not have time to check out the tolerances and how I did as I had just a few minutes until I had to do my job helping our awesome patrons, and I am easily distracted so I would check it out in the afternoon (it was early morning, and the library was about to open). But like opening Christmas presents at grandma's, it had to wait till the dishes were cleaned first.
By the time I had opportunity to check out the tray and how it turned out, I saw that I only had 5 minutes left of the support tray and I decided that I could wait what ended up being almost 9 minutes. Timers on 3d printers are never accurate, in fact they are more like guidelines (Pirates of the Caribbean 1 joke showing my age and odd sense of humor. Check and Check). Prying the print off the build plate, I slowly and calmly walked out of the Colab with a grin that would rival the Joker's (Nicolson not Ledger, old age reference number 2, Check) and made my way to my desk.
I opened the carry case placing it on the desk.
I took the first tray and set it in the case....I saw it for the first time...
It was too large.
It was just under an inch to long along length and width.
I was floored, just crushed again like when I realized my design was too long. So after I spent 5 minutes curled under my desk errr decrying the fates for this oversight...taking 3 deep breathes and began to troubleshoot what went wrong and it became clear pretty quickly, I used the outside dimensions not the inside. A quick jaunt up to the Colab to get the measuring tape, I was able to get the internal dimensions, convert it to mm and halve them and took an extra millimeter off to be extra sure I had the tolerances. With this I shrunk a copy of the default tray, because I learned never throw away something when it might be useful later, before placing the ring inserts onto this new size, but here is where I had the biggest hurt, I was only able to get 11 ring inserts on each side, 22 total per tray. I was bit deflated as I would not be able to put a full squad on each side for one of my armies, the other army yes but not both. Moving back to the support tray I was able to get one 60mm ring with two 25mm and had enough space to fit a pill base on a single side, so I would have my (current) supports covered with the option for a prone figure if needed started making me feel good about the resize.
I still took the overly large trays home thinking I might be able to repurpose it for something else and check the tolerances for the bases too. Well, when I got into my craft room (it's really the storage closet for my wife and me but I like the name) and grabbed a mini and dropped it into the ring insert and watched my little guy topple over. I was stunned and tried setting it into the ring delicately and when it wouldn't fit I stood up and looked at it from the top where I noticed the ring almost fit, it just needed a little more space to allow the base to move.
I looked at my support tray and tried to check the tolerances there, same issue so the 25mm ring inserts needed to be increased by a small amount, so the 25 would have to become a 26 the pill base had the same issue and would have to be increased to 51 by 26 and the 60mm ring inserts...didn't. So surprised it worked I pulled out the caliper I had gotten for myself the week before so I can check tolerances at home. What I found was that I had made the 60mm ring inserts 61mm and the 60mm base fit in it nicely and still had enough room to be easily removed without any extra attention required on my part. An easy fix largely and I also realized that the support tray should be my first tray I print because it has all my various sizes, at least at the moment (preemptive apologies to my wife and wallet).
So now I had a possible solution and the last thing I needed to do was start printing what I hope is my final variant of the tray...