Interlocking Hexagonal Toy Bricks

thingiverse

Ever since I stumbled upon Interlocking Hexagonal Toy Bricks by David Barber in 2012, I thought the concept was brilliant and the level of detail in his write-up exceptional. I'm surprised I didn't find an implementation here on Thingiverse; if you know of one please link it in the comments! This is my take on the idea, theoretically customizable through the customizer but probably you will want to edit the OpenSCAD yourself depending on the piece designs you want (if you want different shapes of pieces, editing the OpenSCAD file is the way to do it). The blocks assemble and have a very snug fit but I worry they will have a limited number of assembly-disassembly cycles before the studs fail. No matter; just print more! The following shapes are implemented, and the included STL is plated with one each of: the 1-brick the 2-punctual brick the three different 3-punctual bricks the 2-lateral brick I don't yet have the hang of my numbering system for stud locations, which makes it tedious to enter new bricks; and the way I accommodate both punctual and lateral block designs makes the API confusing. I should look into how to number hex grids and see whether I can't find something that makes more sense (to me). Besides that, I should define a larger number of bricks, as well as other features proposed by Barber such bricks that are missing studs and bricks that have all or part of their outer wall removed. Print Settings Printer: MP Select Mini Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: .2 Infill: N/A Notes: The thinnest features are the inner walls, controlled by inner_width. Check your slicer's preview from the bottom and make sure that the hexagonal grid is complete and not broken or missing segments. The ceiling_thickness should match your slicer's setting for "top thickness", e.g., if you have 2 top layers at .200mm, then a good value for ceiling_thickness is 0.4. Depending on how under- or over-sized your printer prints things, the next parameters to tweak are outer_wall_inset (if the fit between pieces in a layer is too tight, increase the inset; if the gaps are too big, decrease it) and the stud_inset (if the studs are too big to mate, increase the inset; if they're too small, decrease it). The slicer's infill setting doesn't matter much, the print is mostly outlines and top layers. Turn off your printer's support generation. The bridges are very small and can droop substantially without affecting the functionality of the bricks (e.g., a 1mm droop on a 2mm bridge is A-OK); just add another top layer if you're not satisfied with the finish due to drooping bridges. On the other hand, it would be futile to try to remove any supports your slicer generated.