3D Printed 'Centrifugal Puzzle Box' - Solved With a Spin...

With the freedom of 3D printing, I want to design something brand new, innovative and as far as I can tell the rest of the world does not exist, but it also has to be small enough, so that 3D printing will not cost too much (

I use an online service called shape method to 3D print my design because I don't have my own 3D printer (yet? )

This can be very expensive)

So that's what I came up with, a puzzle box solved in a unique way like no one else in the world, most puzzle boxes I 've seen open the box by moving a part of the puzzle in a certain order to a specific precise position, so I want to make my box different. . .

By simply rotating the box on a flat surface will open the lid of the box, but I don't want this solution to be easy to spot so many distractions during the design process, and clues to solve the puzzle in the form of akey --ring.

Above is the delay animation I modeled for the lower half of the box, which is the simplest part of the modeling, so it's easiest to show the delay it creates.

I first designed the mechanics of this puzzle box on my iPad using a simple drawing app, and then used Autodesk Inventor to design the final box (CAD software)

The most difficult part of the design process is not the model itself, it is calculating all the precise dimensions, each feature, such as the channel and the ring, should be like this, so that these 6mm ball bearings can move freely within their channels, when the lid is opened and the ball bearing is located on the inner edge of their channels, through the ring in the lid, to lock the ring and prevent the lid from being removed.

I made 0 clear

25mm is designed to fit between any parts, such as pins/rods in the lid and holes in the box, so that they can fit closely after printing, but there is not much friction.

I decided that the outside of the box looked complicated to distract from the cheat simple solution, so I decided to add 6 sliders to the top of the lid in different shapes and 3 spring buttons (

In the second prototype)

By taking advantage of the flexible nature of 3D printing materials, this means that I can model the springs for the buttons built in the design and print as a whole, and these additional design features make no sense in solving this puzzle, they are just distraction from users.

Some 3D printing techniques, such as the one I will use (SLS)

It is possible to print fully assembled components in a print, and I am using this to design the removable sliders and buttons in the lid of the platter box by making sure I leave a gap of 0.

5mm between the physically independent parts of the design (e. g.

Cover and slider)

Therefore, after printing they will actually be separate objects, which eliminates the need to assemble after printing and also makes it possible for spring buttons that are part of the design.

Finally, I decided to add thread to the solution of this puzzle, which is the digital form at the top of the lid, and these are actually encoded in = 1 B = 2 C = 3, read 'give me a quick spin to unlock my life' and yes this is the Printablekey that is hard to notice-

The Ring contains a QR code that the smartphone can scan to display the text 'a = 1 B = 2 C = 3' and can direct the user to find this thread if they wish.

After a few hours of modeling, I'm ready to order a prototype from shapeway (

3d printing service

I learned something that needs to be modified in the first design, but thankfully, after a little modification, the prototype was successful!

Unfortunately, the design did not take effect immediately, I overestimated the hardness of the material, so I could remove the lid even if it was locked, because the friction between the ball bearings and the outer walls of their channels is not enough to prevent the lid from being removed, this is repaired by adding a lip to the inside of the Channel, so now there is a physical barrier that prevents the ball bearing from sliding out of friction that no longer depends on the material when the lid is locked and trying to remove it.

This lip is made of a 1/4 lasslasreinformed paper and I stick it to the channel and use propylene salt (superglue).

The second failure was that my words and numbers were engraved into the restricted area because of the supplement (

Selective laser sintering

In the 3D printing process, unfortunately, the engraved letters are filled with extra powder during the 3D printing process, which is almost impossible to remove, which makes the text difficult to see, in general, the spell frame looks a bit cheesy and in order to fix this I decided to send all the text and numbers so that the issue with the powder would not be a problem.

I also decided to tilt the front and back end of the channel in the next version so that each ball bearing is in only 1 position on 2 positions (bistable)

Lock or unlock each channel to make the locking mechanism more secure and reliable.

The key ring containing the QR code clue 'a = 1 B = 2 C = 3' can be decoded using a smartphone, which can see and read the QR code through the smartphone.

I ordered the second prototype with these amendments and it arrived within 4 working days of placing the order at night!

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