If you’re a subscriber to Cubism For Fun (and if you’re not you should be!), you will recognize Bruce Patterson as the author of several puzzle design articles. A few years ago he designed a cubic puzzle of 90 interlocking pieces called Cube90 and built one from wood. I later helped with modeling the pieces so that they could be 3D printed. And here’s the result:
With 90 pieces it’s probably impossible to solve by hand or even with BurrTools but the good news is that Bruce wrote a book that gives the design of each piece as well as detailed assembly instructions. Strictly speaking it’s not really a puzzle when you’re just following instructions but I had a lot of fun with “solving” Cube90. There’s something about putting pieces together that fit right – like those Lego kits with a bizillion pieces.
Bruce’s article on Cube90 appears in CFF #119 (November 2022) and CFF will soon be providing a link to the book. In the mean time, he has given me permission to make available the PDF of his book, the machine-readable list of hexadecimal codes for the pieces, and the .STL files I created. Obviously a lot of work went into this project and he and I both ask that you give proper attribution to Bruce and me if you use these materials for a blog post, to sell the pieces, to distribute the .STL files, etc.
The puzzle in the picture was made with pieces that I designed to have an inter-piece gap of .15mm. That may give too loose a fit for folks with a higher tolerance printer (e.g., a Prusa i3 MK3S+) than mine. So I made another set of .STL files using an inter-piece gap of .10mm. Here are the .15mm .STL files and here are the .10mm .STL files.
Have fun!
February 1, 2023 UPDATE:
George Bell reports that some intrepid soul modeled all 90 pieces in BurrTools and by telling BurrTools their final, assembled position, BurrTools was able to find a solution. George sent me the .xmpuzzle file (available here) and it’s pretty cool to watch BurrTools’ animated solution.
That’s great news. Thanks John (and Bruce) for this brilliant design. I had great fun with the 0.15 mm version that I printed on my Bambu Lab X1-C, but I did find the finished assembly a little loose.
I will definitely try again with the 0.10 mm tolerance version and let you know how I get on.
Terrific – I’ve never printed the 0.10mm gap pieces so it would be great to hear what you find out. Thanks!
My goodness! That looks amazing! Unfortunately I’m not allowed a 3D printer on threat of very expensive divorce. One day hopefully I’ll get one and sneak it in without her noticing and then manufacture this. But she’s quite observant and would probably realise there was a large “thing” in the study building things.
What is your voxel size? I made a BurrTools file of the puzzle and converted it to PuzzleCad. Do you (or anyone) have a list of which pieces require supports? I haven’t printed it yet.
The voxels are 8mm on a side. I oriented all the pieces in the .STL files to primarily minimize the need for supports and secondarily to maximize adhesion. I didn’t have trouble with supports and so didn’t bother with using snap fits.
Yeah, 8 mm looks like a good size! I’m not sure if PuzzleCAD snap joints work with that size, but as you say supports can be used and don’t show on the outside. Do you recall if assembly/disassembly requires a rotation? I seem to remember one.
One step (D14) requires tilting a piece to get it into place. A human wouldn’t call it a rotation but BurrTools probably would. (By the way, I’d be happy to host your BurrTools .xmpuzzle file for Cube90; just email it to me.)
Can I order this puzzle somewhere do get directly the 3D printed pieces beecause I do not have a printer. Iam a puzzle-collector from Luxembourg(Europe) with about 16000 puzzles. I think that we may have met at a collectors international puzzle party. I may pay the puzzle by paypal. What would be its price?
Best regards
CG
40 chemin rouge
L-4480 BELVAUX
Great to hear from you Carlo. I’ll put you in touch with Richard Gain – he has better printers than I do and has printed Cube90 recently. He may be able to make one for you.
The Burr Tools file is a great addition, but it’s not quite right yet.
Piece 91 appears to be a single unit cube which doesn’t appear in the set of STL files and, I believe, should not be not needed for the solution. I was watching the animated solution in Burr Tools when I saw it creeping in around move 16, I think.
Been out of town – sorry for the delayed response. I don’t know BurrTools well enough to attempt what you’re describing but maybe some of my other readers do. If anyone has an improved file, I would be happy to host it here.
I think the BurrTools file is correct, in fact it seems the best way to bypass the restrictions of BurrTools (as rotations are not supported). So 2 modifications have been done regarding the original pieces:
1) In piece 71, 1 voxel has been omitted (34 voxels instead of 35).
2) To obtain the total of 1728 voxels of the 12 x 12 x 12 cube, piece 91 (1 voxel) has been added.
Probably this “trick” has been applied to allow a step like D14 without tilting or rotating a piece.