Milling a Rubik's Cube? [pic intensive]

[rachal]

My plastic speedcube is nearing the end of its life span (I'm an avg. 35 second cuber w/ partial Fridrich method. it gets lots of wear and tear) and I was considering the possibility of CNCing a more durable cube...so I sat down last night with calipers and a disassembled cube and CADed this up.

Please take a look and tell me if you see any obvious problems. (besides the fact that it will take forever to fabricate and its a crazy idea)

The parts with the nice filleted edges are just for visualization, I have versions of all the parts with normal edges which are the ones that I'll actually be using as a template. (Haven't CADed center caps yet)

[Alex Cormier]

wow thats pretty impressive skills in both rubix and cad. good luck on the project.

[Conor Ryan]

Crazy Idea, fabricating probably will give you nightmares (just reminding you) but your design looks pretty good, actually really good. A one question though, how is it going to be held together in the center of the cube? (if it's simple, fabrication will be a lot easier) I can see it, but could you fill us in on how it'll work and how you plan on fabricating it.

Keep up the nice work and keep us posted!

[rachal]

Well, I tried to model it exactly after a normal cube, so the centerpieces will just be held on by screws. They'll be locked into the axes but the centers will be able to rotate freely about them. (If you've never seen the inside of a cube, check out this article) Also, I'll probably make the axes out of some kind of plastic or even take it from one of my DIY cubes so I won't have to tap the holes.

As for fabrication...not quite sure how to approach all those curved protrusions yet...I have a vague plan involving a mill, plenty of coolant, and a lot of G coding...

Heh, it might even be easier to just cast it.

[Schnabel]

I thought that it is funny how you can see you go from no network, to a wireless network and a half full battery to a charging battery!
Anyways, great job with cadding it up! Just one question, does it work on cad?

[foundbobby]

http://www.mcmaster.com/

werd

[Dan Zollman]

Wow...keep us posted on the fabrication...

this could also be done on a rapid prototyping machine.

[JamesBrown]

Chris from 213 made one of these last year out of aluminum. It is pretty cool.

[rachal]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

Chris from 213 made one of these last year out of aluminum. It is pretty cool.

Do you have pics? Was it cast or milled?

(I never started making it)

[Gunner]

Would you happen to have these cad files you would share? I may be able
To get it machined.