SHAPEWAYS - 3D PRINTING

[Johan Heyns]

http://www.shapeways.com/model/22200/world_s_smallest_puzzle_cube___2_.html

Available @ $2 each

[Canuck]

Yeah, I noticed that on Rob's puzzle page...Richard Gain has some nice designs

[bkuehner]

Yeah, Rich Gain's stuff is great. I've bought one or more of all of the cubes he's made available on Shapeways (I gave some to Rob). They fit well, are not super-hard (some are pretty easy), and are inexpensive because they are small (I think the most costly one is $20-ish). The "Strong White Flexible" material on Shapeways seems to indeed be pretty strong, even at small sizes. It needs to be smoothed off a bit at first or else the fit is too tight, but that is pretty easy to accomplish by rubbing pieces together.

There are some other neat designs on Shapeways, including some Oskar van Deventer/Bram Cohen designs, but they are out of my price range because they are pretty big:
http://www.shapeways.com/model/29585/geary_cube.html   ($660 for this one)

One warning, when you order stuff from Shapeways it will all come mixed together, so when I ordered two copies of four different puzzles, I first had to sort out which pieces were in which puzzle. A little meta-puzzle.

Brett

[gibell]

Who wants to make this out of wood??  Would be cool, but quite difficult, I would think.  The design is due to Rik Brouwer, I believe.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/54365/dodecafe.html

Ask Rik for permission (and details!) if you want to make this.

[Canuck]

George, I only now just realized that 'shapeways' is a user implemented design program, I think?  Are the puzzles you have in your 'store' sold by you or shapeways?  

[gibell]

Shapeways is a company that owns a lot of 3D printers.  You can send them designs in 3D and they will print them for you.  It is sort of like Kinko's, but in 3D!!  Also important, shipping is free for orders over $25, even internationally!

They also have set up their web site so that other people can order your designs.  This is analogous to "print on demand" publishing where you can put your book on Amazon and every time someone orders one they print out a copy and send it to them.  In the case of Shapeways "the things you can order" are 3D objects, for example puzzles.

Yes I have a lot of puzzles in my shop, http://www.shapeways.com/shops/polypuzzles

but Oskar makes me look like small fry http://www.shapeways.com/shops/oskarpuzzles

[Canuck]

George help!  I tried exporting a design from 'Burrtools' in .stl but only one piece of the puzzle resulted from 'shapeways'...what am I doing wrong?  Have you uploaded designs from burrtools? 

[gibell]

George help!  I tried exporting a design from 'Burrtools' in .stl but only one piece of the puzzle resulted from 'shapeways'...what am I doing wrong?  Have you uploaded designs from burrtools? 

Let me guess, you got an error from Shapeways that your part was not "manifold"?  Unfortunately, there is a problem with the BurrTools STL export where it can produce parts that Shapeways cannot figure out.  It usually only happens on complex parts.  Derek Bosch fixed this bug, but this fix is not in the current version.  It should be in the next release.

Try setting "bevel=0".  Then it will (probably) work.

[gibell]

Rich Gain has a blog which describes the process ...

http://puzzlefriend.wordpress.com/

Yes, price goes with volume.  So a puzzle that is the size of a normal wood one is going to be a couple hundred dollars (assuming the pieces are solid).  That's why Rich Gain's store is called "MICROcubology"!

You can also put the entire puzzle in one STL file, but you have to lay out the parts, side by side so that they do not touch, as one BurrTools part.  This "part" is only used for STL export.

[Canuck]

Thanks George, pretty interesting stuff, especially for puzzle designers 

[mike toulouzas]

yes it is true.... check this:
http://www.puzzlewood.de/gallery/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=12&products_id=79&language=en
This is very funny.Cause a week ago i send an email to bernhard asking for some puzzles and the dodecafe was one of it and the combination lock was another and i saw that john has it on paradise.NOW thats telepathy.

[gibell]

Mike, thanks for the link ...

Puzzlewood.de: "This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 30 November, 2004."

I guess it isn't such a new design after all!

[gibell]

Excellent!!  Now try unit size 5mm, price should go down by a factor of 8 ... $16.

Welcome to the world of tiny plastic puzzles.  Please don't sell your woodworking tools!

Would be cool in stainless steel.  But this gets crazy expensive.

[Canuck]

Excellent!!  Now try unit size 5mm, price should go down by a factor of 8 ... $16.

Welcome to the world of tiny plastic puzzles.  Please don't sell your woodworking tools!

Would be cool in stainless steel.  But this gets crazy expensive.

Yeah, I thought of actually increasing the size to match my original prototype which is 5/8"...but as you mentioned it gets pricey, although I'd love to see one in stainless steel, that would be cool...but the price is almost $800 bucks  

[gibell]

PM sent!