[Testers Wanted] Multi-Material Print in Place Rubik's Cube

Multi-Material, Print in Place Rubik's Cube

NOTE: as of right now, this model is non-functional. There needs to be additional clearance between the individual cubes, but adding that while also providing enough adhesion between the PETG and PLA elements is proving to be a decent design challenge.

Now that multi-toolhead Prusa XLs have started shipping, I've been thinking about different models that could take advantage of its ability to use multiple different materials in a single print. This Rubik's cube is designed to be printed in place with PLA and PETG, with no support material necessary. The design takes advantage of the fact that when PLA is printed together with PETG they don't adhere to each other, creating an easily separated interface while still allowing for very tight tolerances. Unfortunately, my personal printer is only capable of printing with a single material at a time, so I'm unable to test the concept. If anyone wants to give it a try and share how it worked for them, that'd be great!

The cube itself uses a variation on the void cube mechanism with the center pieces added back in. Since this mechanism has much fewer moving parts than a standard Rubik's cube, such as that seen in Anton Granata's design, I'm hoping that it will be much better suited to 3D printing.

File descriptions

The design consists of two individual .3mf files, one for the parts that should be printed in PLA and the other for the parts that should be printed in PETG. In order for the design to print properly, these two files must be placed at the same position on the bed, one inside of the other.

Print settings

I'm unable to test this design myself with my current set up, so the settings below are a best guess as to what would work well

• 0.4mm nozzle
• 0.45mm line width
• 0.2mm layer height
• 20% gyroid infill
• All parts of rubiks_cube_pla.3mf should be assigned to extruder 1
• All parts of rubiks_cube_petg.3mf should be assigned to extruder 2
• Extruder 1 should be loaded with PLA
• Extruder 2 should be loaded with PETG

Colophon

All parts were designed using onshape and are fully parametric. If you want to make any tweaks or alterations to the design, it is accessible here.