Shut up and take my money!
Seriously, I want to buy this, like right now...
Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
41–50 of 69 posts
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#42I would have liked to hear more about why the author was disappointed with the aluminum cube. I'd think it would be lighter and easier to handle.
From the article on the aluminum cube: http://lulabs.net/machining/cube/
> The flat bottoms of the face centers do not allow the cube to turn as smoothly as it should; a problem that was rectified with a different design in the new cube.
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#43This is so cool, stuff like this makes me wish I had studied mechanical engineering instead of computer science. Does anyone know of a good route for learning the software stack associated with this stuff? I keep up with some maker YT channels like Stuff Made Here and they usually do an okay job of showing which machines were used and how each piece was made. But what they usually never show is which programs they us…
Fusion 360 has a free version and is very approachable. It's pretty popular among 3D printing hobbyists, but you can use it for all kinds of 2D and 3D designs.
Fusion 360 is pretty neat for hobbyists. I've used it for 3D printing and for CNC milling in a makerspace.
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#44I definately enjoyed the article, but apologies. I enjoyed the referrenced article https://kellycordes.com/2009/11/02/the-fun-scale/ much more. Perhaps it's just my mood at the moment, but it had me laughing out loud. Regarding the Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube. What a work of art!
I also loved the linked article - the concept of Type II Fun is definitely one I'll be adding to my vocabulary :)
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#45I was kind of hoping the faces would be heat-colored but I imagine that would have been a bit more complex.
just need an oven with good temp control. there is this lovely bronze color you can get on stainless.its strangely alot more stable than color you get from heat treating mild steel...but i bet it would rub off if you used it a nontrivial amount
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#46I was kind of hoping the faces would be heat-colored but I imagine that would have been a bit more complex.
just need an oven with good temp control. there is this lovely bronze color you can get on stainless.its strangely alot more stable than color you get from heat treating mild steel...but i bet it would rub off if you used it a nontrivial amount
The problem I imagine would be with the corner pieces. You'd need three different temperatures for the three different faces (with stable temperature across each face). I imagine that achieving this might be still technologically possible but almost certainly non-trivial.
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#47This is so cool, stuff like this makes me wish I had studied mechanical engineering instead of computer science. Does anyone know of a good route for learning the software stack associated with this stuff? I keep up with some maker YT channels like Stuff Made Here and they usually do an okay job of showing which machines were used and how each piece was made. But what they usually never show is which programs they us…
I don't know of any great resources, but from my personal experience and understanding of the landscape is that Fusion360 is the most common real CAD program used by hobbyists, and small shops (especially those that are basically "hobbyist bought a bigger mill and moved into a larger garage"). Some of the bigger places will use SolidWorks (which is what 95% of my CAD experience is in), but the price there is way out…
Wow, thanks so much. This is super helpful!
I'll absolutely dig into this stuff more. Even just knowing about the assembly thing is very helpful.
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#48Weighs more than a kg... Makes me wonder if machining a tungsten Rubik's Cube is feasible
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#49This is so cool, stuff like this makes me wish I had studied mechanical engineering instead of computer science. Does anyone know of a good route for learning the software stack associated with this stuff? I keep up with some maker YT channels like Stuff Made Here and they usually do an okay job of showing which machines were used and how each piece was made. But what they usually never show is which programs they us…
I don't know of any great resources, but from my personal experience and understanding of the landscape is that Fusion360 is the most common real CAD program used by hobbyists, and small shops (especially those that are basically "hobbyist bought a bigger mill and moved into a larger garage"). Some of the bigger places will use SolidWorks (which is what 95% of my CAD experience is in), but the price there is way out…
> Some of the bigger places will use SolidWorks (which is what 95% of my CAD experience is in), but the price there is way out of the range of someone just trying to learn.
FWIW, SolidWorks does have a low cost option ($99 a year):
https://discover.solidworks.com/makers
And arguably there also features included in the above that are not available in the free version of Fusion 360 (available in the paid version, which has similar licensing costs to full blown SolidWorks).
Re: Making a Stainless Steel Rubik's Cube
#50This is so cool, stuff like this makes me wish I had studied mechanical engineering instead of computer science. Does anyone know of a good route for learning the software stack associated with this stuff? I keep up with some maker YT channels like Stuff Made Here and they usually do an okay job of showing which machines were used and how each piece was made. But what they usually never show is which programs they us…
This Old Tony, Blondihacks, Wintergatan, and others have done end-to-end videos from CAD to machining to assembly. I particularly recommend Blondihacks' beginner videos: well produced, fun to watch, and cover nearly everything you need to know to get started. Also, face the reality you won't be doing work like this on day one. But you will make something fun.
Clickspring's videos are also full of excellent tips, particularly for small lathe work.