Magnetic Stackable Board Game Component Boxes

thingiverse

Magnetic, stackable, board game component boxes for quick and easy setup of board games. Being stackable, the box on top becomes the lid of the box below. You only need to print one lid for an entire stack. The idea is that you simply pull out the component boxes, unstack and remove the lids and the components are ready to go, in bowls, so your components are neat on the table. The magnets are placed such that there is a weak magnetic force holding the boxes together when placed side-by-side on the table. The lids and boxes require 6x3 mm neodymium cylindrical magnets which are readily available on sites such as eBay or AliExpress. Each lid required 4 magnets and each box requires 8 magnets (4 on top, and 4 on the bottom). I have included non-stackable versions of the boxes which require only 4 magnets. All boxes are 25mm high and the lids are 4.2mm high. There are 6 different box/lid sizes as follows: + Small Square - 52.3 x 52.3 mm + Small Rectangular - 52.33 x 74.0 mm + Medium Square - 74.0 x 74.0 mm + Medium Rectangular - 74.0 x 104.7 mm + Large Square - 104.7 x 104.7 mm + Large Rectangular - 104.7 x 148.0 mm The boxes are designed so that different sizes will tessellate as much as possible as can be seen in the photos. eg, the long side of the small rectangular box is the same length as the medium square box and the short side of the medium rectangular box. When installing the magnets, put magnets in opposite corners with the same polarity and adjacent magnets with the opposite polarity. Eg, for the boxes, in the top left corner and bottom right corners, put the magnets in with North facing up and in the top right and bottom left corners, put the magnets in with South facing up. With the rectangular boxes you need to be sure you have the polarity correct in the lids so that the poles of the magnet align properly when placing them on the boxes or they will repel each other. Before installing magnets in the lid or the bottom of the boxes, I scrape away a little bit of the rim of the hole or it can be difficult to install the magnets. Usually the magnets require a bit of force to be pushed in. The length of the holes is such that the magnets should sit flush, or slightly below recessed. I prefer them slightly recessed so that the lids and boxes can be slid apart easily and the magnets don't scratch. Once pushed in, they typically will stay in on their own. Due to slight variations or if you scrape away too much of the rim of the hole, sometimes the magnets won't stay in, in which case a drop of super glue in the hole will be sufficient to hold the magnet in place. However, due to variations in printers, materials, etc, YMMV.