Getting into PDF seller dungeon tiles

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Absolutely. Might I ask for a product recommendation? I want to go with a 2D dungeon solution with 3D doors, furniture, etc.,. I don't want to have walls on every room. What would be the best Fat Dragon product to go with?



Definitely. Getting a good quality refill kit (like Image Specialist/MIS/Precision Colors) drives the cost per page down to about a tenth of buying the official cartridges at full retail. Those cartridges with print heads attached right on them will only last 5-10 refills, but it's great refilling them for $1 a shot and only having to buy new replacement ones every 5-10 fills.

Dragon Tiles Dungeon Set 1 (and maybe 2) should do it.

 

[kitsune9]

I'm thinking of getting into PDF dungeon tiles. Like the ones SkeletonKey makes.

What I'm wondering is what's the best way to print them off? Do you print with a higher end printer settings on photopaper, or do they look fine on copy paper? How many do you get out of an ink cartride?

Anyone recommend any particular PDFs or Publishers?

I know when I had inkjet printers, it killed a cartridge just to run a complete set so in addition to paying $15 for the pdf, it was costing me $48 for the color and black/white ink cartridges. I have a color laser printer, but haven't gotten around to testing it yet. I'm not really sure that even that would be cost-effective as the four catridges for the laser printer are super expensive (almost the cost of the printer itself for all four) so I unless I get several hundred sets, even I find it hard to reallly justify the cost.

 

[nnms]

I know when I had inkjet printers, it killed a cartridge just to run a complete set so in addition to paying $15 for the pdf, it was costing me $48 for the color and black/white ink cartridges.

I would highly recommend that anyone thinking about getting into printing colour PDFs, to figure out a cost per page beforehand. Then look into aftermark ink cartridges and refill kits. For example, a printer at the office (HP 6-something) has cartridges that sell for $40 a piece. The local wal-mart refills them for $10. The only thing we use that printer for is printing full colour product brochures. We get about 50 8.5x11 pages (colour printing on the whole page) per refill. So that's 20 cents a page.

The local print shops charge about 50 cents a page for colour laser printing. Anything over that and I wouldn't bother with at home printing.

On the other hand, many Canon printers can be easily refilled numerous times. The eBay seller I get my refill kits from comes to $25 shipped for enough ink for 35-40 refills. The refills last about half as long as the new ones, but wow does it save money.

 

[fissionessence]

The local print shops charge about 50 cents a page for colour laser printing. Anything over that and I wouldn't bother with at home printing.

$.50? One color page on 80lb paper costs me $1.16-$1.25. This is at Kinkos or Office Max. What am I doing wrong here?

~

 

[jdrakeh]

$.50? One color page on 80lb paper costs me $1.16-$1.25. This is at Kinkos or Office Max. What am I doing wrong here?

Taking your business to a nationwide chain of stores. Locally owned and operated printers (or regional chains) typically have better deals for the consumer than any nationwide chain will.

I patronize a place locally that charges me something like $.24 for a one-sided color print on 65 lb. photo gloss card stock. And roughly $.06 per side for double-sided black and white prints on 20 lb. bond paper.

As you can imagine, I print a lot of the PDFs that I purchase

 

[nnms]

$.50? One color page on 80lb paper costs me $1.16-$1.25. This is at Kinkos or Office Max. What am I doing wrong here?

I'm in Canada. Usually that means things are more expensive rather than less. So I'm not sure.

Have you shopped around? I've read on forums of people getting colour printing at a UPS Store for 35 cents a page. I think they are independent franchises though, so you'll probably want to give them a call and find out by location.

Perhaps local copy centres have a better rate?

 

[Mark]

I've read on forums of people getting colour printing at a UPS Store for 35 cents a page. I think they are independent franchises though, so you'll probably want to give them a call and find out by location.

Perhaps local copy centres have a better rate?

Both true for me. The local UPS Store has 35 cents a copy and is owned by a guy who also owns the UPS Store in the next twon over, as well. There is a small print shop nearby, too, that has limited hours of operation but does full color for 50 cents a page. I have found that most of the Kinkos services can be found elsewhere for less.

 

[Master01]

Hey all.

Speaking about tiles, Øone Games offer a different approach to the "2D tiles" thing.

Most of our products allow a certain degree of customization before printing. In Øone' Black & White line , for example you can choose which elements of the tile should appear in you customized tile (you can alter the wall filling, the type of grid, the furniture, and so on).

here's a link to a Free product n this line: Medusa Hideout

If you feel creative you can even use our Tile Designer line, a series of PDFs allowing you to design your own tiles and print them. These are not programs, and you can't save your work (except by saving your screen). They are designed to make tiles and print them on the fly.

Here's a link to a free demo Wilderness Tile Designer Demo

 

[fissionessence]

Thanks for the tips, guys! I just found a local print shop and got some stuff for $.30/page! And they had heavier paper than Kinkos/Office Max! Also, since we were talking about it, I asked . . . they can print up to 15x19in pages. In color, one page that size would be $.55! I forgot to ask if they could then laminate that page, but I'm pretty excited about everything after getting gouged at the previous stores I went to.

~

 

[Mark]

Thanks for the tips, guys! I just found a local print shop and got some stuff for $.30/page! And they had heavier paper than Kinkos/Office Max! Also, since we were talking about it, I asked . . . they can print up to 15x19in pages. In color, one page that size would be $.55! I forgot to ask if they could then laminate that page, but I'm pretty excited about everything after getting gouged at the previous stores I went to.

~

That's great! Glad it worked out for you. I posted this in another thread but your plans for how to use the things have me thinking it is worth posting this info on how I handle poster-sized or battlemaps here, too.

I split up maps into standard page sizes, print them out at the least expensive local place that has a color printer (currently the UPS Store does $0.35 per full color page), glue stick the pages to an appropriately size piece of foam board, then cover it all with lamination sheets to preserve and protect and allow me to use wet erase markers on them. The back can be scored in places to allow them to fold up well enough. The overall cost of materials is between $5 and $10 US.

Here's some photos of a couple of these I did for a Free RPG Day with Paizo maps (that I even had to scan and enlarge to make it happen) -

06-2008 Free RPG Day - a set on Flickr