Folding fidget cube

thingiverse

One of my coworker's kids had a cube toy that is fun to fidget with. I've tried to recreate it for 3D printing, and these photos are of the toy itself, not the print, until I can get it printed. Work in Progress This model is still being worked on. I'm still figuring out the best way to print it. Please let me know if you try to print/assemble this. I'll update once I have it working. If you want to make it, try printing the _test.stl object, which contains enough pieces to test your settings. For assembly instructions, 'L' means a pin and 'O' means a hole, so the _ollo piece has a hole, two pins next to each other, and then another hole. To assemble the test print, snap the loose hinge to the llll piece. Make sure it turns freely. Then put the hinge pins through the holes in the lool piece. Finally, snap the first hole of the oooo piece onto one of those two hinge pins. If this piece swivels well, you should be all set! For each side of the cube (six total), you'll need either: 4 _oooo pieces, 2 _lll pieces, 2 _ollo pieces, and 2 _hinge pieces. OR 1 flat_sides piece and 1 pin_sides piece (which has all those pieces grouped together) OR 1 side_set piece, which puts all the pieces for one side into one STL. Alternatively, color_set has enough pieces to make two sides (if you maintain the original color settings) on a 150mm square bed. The pieces with pins (llll, ollo, hinge, side_set, color_set, and pin_sides) will all need supports touching the buildplate. I found that printing them this way makes the pegs much stronger than if they were vertical. Because the pins and holes have very small tolerances, the hinges need to be printed at .1mm or finer resolution. The leg pieces can be printed at a coarser resolution, which is why I've separated the two files. I've found that at .08mm resolution, everything prints and works well at 1x scale. If you scale up to 1.5, you can go with a coarser (faster) resolution, but it produces a larger cube. I've been using grid supports at 20% infill to support the pins, and it works well. Post-Printing Assemble the sides: Assemble each side, with the orientation of the first layer being: l o o l l l l l l l l l l o o l where L is a peg and O is a hole. The top layer uses 4 o o o o pieces in the opposite direction. Add hinges: The hinges go on the top and bottom sides through the open holes. Note that the flat sides of the hinges face inside the cube. Snap all the sides together: Push two hinges together until they snap into place. Enjoy!