Stacker

Stacker is a simple cubic puzzle designed with BlocksCAD and then 3D Printed.

It consists of five sections and each of these sections is a 5 x 5 x 1 units square.

Each of these squares has a number of pegs and cut-outs which are 1 x 1 x 1 units square.

The five sections contain between 4 to 6 pegs and cut outs.

The pegs and cut-out are arranged in such a way that there is only only way the sections can be stacked to complete the puzzle.

BlocksCAD

3D printer

The puzzle is created in BlocksCAD.

The first step is to create the first piece which is a 5 x 5 x 1 units square.

As with this and all the other pieces only one shape object is required and this is Cube along with the Translate transform.

A 50 x 50 x 10mm cube is created on on top of this are placed 6 squares of 10 x 10 x10mm, these are placed in a random fashion.

I colour coded these pegs in a different colour, in this case Green to aid in visualisation once more sections are added.

Once this is complete I create the next section.

The difference between this and the first section is that the cut outs must align with the pegs on the first section, meaning that these positions are fixed.

The pegs on the second section are less constrained as long as they occupy any of the free areas but not touching a neighbouring peg. These are again randomly placed and coloured blue.

The third section follows the same format as applied to section two were the cut-outs in section three align with the pegs on section two. Section three pegs are coloured yellow.

The fourth section follows the same format as applied to section three were the cut-outs in section four align with the pegs on section three. Section four pegs are coloured red.

Finally section five which consists entirely of cut-outs to align with the pegs in section four.

The puzzle is now complete.

Stack_cube.xml is the code file used by BlocksCAD.

Stack_cube.obj is the file that will be used by the slicer to create the file for the 3D printer.

Load the OBJ file into your preferred slicer, I use Cura.

The object file can be found at Pinshape

From here you can edit the size and other printing parameters for your printer.

Print settings: Layer Height 0.15 mm, Shell 1 mm & 3 wall, Infill 25%, Tri Hexagon, Build Plate Adhesion Brim

Approximate Print time.

50% takes 1 Hr 38 Min , Weight 15 g & 4.51 m of filament.

Holes may require filing subject to tolerances and pegs can be fragile if printed <50%