Though I haven’t blogged in about a year, at least I have been making progress on my puzzles. Pictured here are Model #808 (the rectangular one with two holes), Model #518 (the multi-colored cube), Model #921 (the circular one), and Model #360 (the thicker rectangular one with the red logo).
The internal design of Model #808 (formerly known as Model #873) continues to evolve and I’m hoping to get a prototype today that will confirm the reliability of the new design. I guess it’s no surprise but getting a puzzle mechanism to work in theory is easy, getting it to work once or twice in an actual mechanism is doable, but getting it to work dependably and reproducibly is really hard. I’m on Rev. 9 on this one.
Model #360 turned out to be easier to get working than I expected and it may be the first one to reach production in aluminum. Models #518 and #921 still have a ways to go.
In other news, I now have an FDM type 3D printer (the i3PRO from MakerFront) to shorten the cycle of revise design / make new prototype / test new prototype. I’m still learning how to get good quality prints from it but I look forward to being able to get a physical prototype of a puzzle design within hours instead of days. I’ll post some videos of my experiences with it in case anyone else is contemplating buying one of these things.