Simple Jigsaw

pinshape

Human: A simple 9-piece (3 x 3), interlocking jigsaw puzzle. Completed size 60 mm x 60 mm. Multiple prints could be used to create larger puzzles. I chose a jigsaw because it's not too big, so it wouldn't take too long to print, and it has a practical use and some intricacy. I was exploring CAD packages and came across BlocksCAD, which appealed to me as it's a coding-based application rather than the usual technical drawing package. With a significant part of my life spent coding, I was immediately drawn to give it a try. BlocksCAD runs in your browser but allows you to save files to your device. If you're familiar with SCRATCH, you should have no problem finding your way around, although the end result is a 3D object(s). So I had an idea of what to make and what I was going to use to realize the design and at the same time discover how to use the application. The jigsaw pieces are made up from two 3D shapes: Cube and Sphere. In conjunction with Transforms; Rotate and Translate to position the shapes, and Set Ops, Difference, Union, and Intersection to finalize the pieces. There are four main jigsaw pieces: 1) Corner with tab and blank (4 required) 2) Edge1 with two tabs and one blank (2 required) 3) Edge2 with two blanks and one tab (2 required) 4) Centre with two blanks and two tabs (1 required) The shapes are coded in Modules, enabling reuse of existing code to enable flipping, rotation, and duplication of these pieces to allow a complete 3 x 3 jigsaw to be realized. Each piece is created using the Cube shape with dimensions of (L,W,H); 20 mm x 20 mm x 3 mm, with the Sphere shape radius 5 mm used to create the blanks and tabs as required for each shape. The dimensions were selected such that the pieces are both easy to handle and robust. BlocksCAD, unlike a technical drawing package which displays all your edits in real-time, has to be rendered each time you wish to see the effects of your changes. There are 3 levels of rendering: Low, Medium & High. While working on this project, I would render using the Low setting for speed, as the number, size, and complexity of the shapes increase so does the rendering time. Using the High setting repeatedly would occasionally hang although the web page would generally recover where you left off; sometimes it did not, therefore suggest saving it regularly to be on the safe side. I would only use the High render setting for a final output, saving this as an XML for further editing and as an OBJ (ASCII) file for use in Ultimaker Cura. Once in Cura, adjust the printing properties as required to suit your printer and personal preferences. As a guide, printing time with Shell: 2 line count wall, Infill: 10%, Grid, Layer Height 0.2 mm, Speed 60 mm/s = ~1 hour, using 4 m of filament. In this case, the filament used was SUNLU Silk PLA Filament 1.75 mm, Silky Shiny.