While in a conversation on Windows Live Messenger with a forum member, NXTGen, the conversation somehow came up to a domino. I started thinking if there was any way to create a real circle domino, with 6 faces with inner circles. After thinking for a while, I ruled out a hidden edge 3x3x3 as the mechanism, as there is no feasible way to make that design simple. As soon as the spindle mechanism came to mind, I thought, "What if I connected the edge-circle pieces to the arms of the spindle itself?" After some thinking and some designing, I have come up with a working solution to having all 6 sides of a 3x3x2 in a working circle mechanism.







EDIT: I forgot to mention to everybody that if you feel like designing this yourself along with getting it printed, by all means go for it. My only request is that you mention that I created the original design in the post.

WOW! That as fast

As was your reply. Why did you sign out of messenger if your still here?

Sorry about that was pretty pissed about my Maru 4x4

Quick quick! Erase the photos before a chinese company steals them D:! Should work, never though of making it like this, would be awesome to have a true crazy 3x3x2.

He just said that he doesn't care if people make them for themselves...

That's a great design! The one problem is though, during a mid turn, the circles on the sides could fall out.

This has actually not occurred to me. The fix for this would be to make the internal mechanism smaller, thus creating the ability for the circle pieces to be deeper than half way. If I had some more time today, I would re-design this. Also, I believe that the normal spindle part is now unnecessary, as the part of it that is visible on the outside would serve the same purpose. If the inner lock was removed, it would allow for a deeper side mechanism.

The only problem now is that since the corners will be more than half way deep on two sides, they would touch each other, making the cube impossible. The solution to this is to pillow the puzzle, therefore making it to where the corner circle pieces do not have be half way through, but only go more than the pillow is on the U and D faces.

After tweaking literally every single part in this puzzle, I was able to make it to where pieces don't fall out, without pillowing the puzzle. The method used was to make the 3x3 circle pieces thinner, letting me move the edge of the spindle inward farther. This removed the primary lock, which was not needed anyway, and allowed for 2x3 corner circle pieces to extend inward further. Here is the ending result.







If anyone wants the .stl files, just send me a PM. The only thing is that the puzzle is not filleted, nor tolerances added in.

After looking over the puzzle again, I have noticed that the center piece of the core for the 3x3 face would block the edge pieces from rotating underneath it, as it should in this design. I have fixed this again, which led to upping the size of the internal radii, which made me have to make the spindle arms smaller.

I believe this will be the final fix. I realized that the entire puzzle would turn as a whole except for the side circles when you turned it, because the 3x3 center piece was one with the spindle itself. In order to fix this, I made a hole in the spindle, and made the center column go right through the thing. I realized that this also completely rendered the cap useless, as I could create "key" pieces that just glued together and didn't turn to be used as both of the 3x3 center pieces. I believe the puzzle will function perfectly now.





P.S. The renders don't show it, but the cap is now gone, and the center pieces are flush with the faces of the cuboid.

That definately should work. Great job!

Don't go changing your mind on this one, look how many renditions I had to create after you pointed out just one of the flaws...