Thursday, April 4, 2013

Weekend project - CNC wooden rubik cube-

In these last few month I had to travel by train 3 hours a day, so I've learnt how to solve rubik cube and I bought one designed for speed cubing.
When the cube arrived I found out, to my great joy,  it wasn't already mounted!!
I spent some time to build it, the speed-cubing cube are very different internally from the "normal" rubik cube, they don't have sharp edge as the other version, they have some strange 3D curves instead

dayan cube

Since this model is too much complex to mill with a normal 3-axis milling machine, i decided to try milling the normal and easier cube

normal cube

This will be the project pipeline:

-Create the 3D model
-Find how to mill it (it can't be milled in a single step)
-Create the CNC file
-Find how to put all the pieces together


3D MODEL done

central piece (need 6 of them)

testing in the 3D model if the piece match

some piece together





First milling test


This lateral piece was made milling in two sides, top and bottom face.
The results are good, not amazing, but good, you can see a light division line. Next time I'll use a longer drill and do a top-to-bottom first milling step to remove this problem.
Milling this was relatively simple, the hard part will be mill the angle pieces, because they can't be made in two step, they need three.
I'm planning to build an array of square holes from a thick wood piece where to fix the cube pieces and do the second and third milling phases.

First test done, milled the first part end then the hole where the piece will be fixed.
After a coordinate problem (as you can see in the picture) i milled the two remaining sides.
The result is not so good, so next time instead of drill a hole and then fix the part there I'll build a sort of clap where the piece can be hold


I will update you on how things are going as soon as possible :)