The A-maze-ing Puzzle Cube. Photos Updated 08.12.2022

This Puzzle Cube has 5 x 3D printed fixed mini mazes one on each side of the box internally and one inside the removeable lid, there is provision inside the box to store other small puzzles etc.

The mazes are all different and work really well considering it's just a 3mm steel ball but the ball runs smooth on the 3D printed surface, 2 of the side mazes have a perimeter channel allowing you to choose which end you start from, the other 2 side mazes just have a channel across the top and bottom, and the maze in the lid is just end to end start and finish all the mazes are which ever way you choose to do them, top to bottom or bottom to top.

The Acrylic cube was inexpensive for a set of 4 and to be honest they are not very well put together as in the dimensions, top and bottom are not equal, so it was a bit of a task getting the mazes to fit, some light tweaking with the Dremel on the back edges of 2 of the side mazes soon had a snug push together fit which is what I wanted and not seen anyway.

Maze Generator and Inkscape.

Photo update: Some better photos added, less reflections.

Supplies

Acrylic cube 10cm x 10cm (Amazon UK)

1.75 PLA

3D Printer

Inkscape

Fusion 360

Double sided tape

3mm Steel Balls

Step 1: The Maze Vector Set Up

First of all we need a Maze SVG to work with, to do this we need a Maze Generator, the one I came across first is simply called Maze Generator, and it does this really well.

Something to note: If you use this Maze Generator to produce Mazes to sell, then you need to buy a commercial licence, it states this on the web page, for this purpose of showing how I made some it's fine.

You have the option of a Rectangular, Circular, Triangular, or Hexagonal Maze, and once selected you can generate a Maze and also select how difficult you want the Maze to be, I went for the 20 20 square the generator provides a solution so you can see the degree of difficulty before downloading, select a maze and download as an SVG.

We now need to open Inkscape, the SVG Maze lines are too thin to work with so we need to thicken them.

I imported my saved Maze SVG into Inkscape and clicked on it to activate it, you can set up page sizes and dimensions etc, I didn't bother with this in Inkscape, just ensure the SVG is activated, there are arrows surrounding the SVG when its activated.

Using Control on the keyboard and the scroll button on the mouse we can make the SVG bigger if it's preferred.

There is some guess work to this on how thick you make the lines, bearing in mind the ball bearing size etc, and I was backwards and forwards until I had something to work with, I wanted to use 3mm steel Balls as I already had some.

Now to thicken the lines, click on object on the top tabs and then Fill and Stroke and select stroke style in the box, I made it 1.5 initially and then click back on the page area and the lines will thicken, looking along the top tabs again select path and object to path and then Save as and save as Inkscape SVG file and import into Vetric or Fusion 360 to work with.

Step 2: Fusion 360 Maze

This was the tricky part for me, the plan is to have 4 Maze's in the Cube, and I want them to be a snug fit, 2 Mazes would go from side to side and be a snug fit ideally, the cube wasn't square which wasn't a good start.

All the Maze 3D prints were set up using Fusion 360

Unfortunately I have run out of time to run through the entire process, but the principle is the same for each of the Mazes.

Create a new component, select which plane to sketch to create a square to the dimensions you want, use Project and offset the perimeter in 0.75mm in my case, end sketch, the base is extruded to 1.5mm and then the offset is extruded to 5.5mm and join.

Select the base as a the new work face, import the modified svg and scale it to fit within the area, extrude that to 5mm and join.

As it was guess work for me, at this point I picked the base as new sketch and selected sphere, I made a solid sphere of 3mm and made it a new component, I then grounded the Maze and used the sphere to see if it would clear the sides, which it did, Phew!

This would be my format for the rest of the Mazes.

3D Printing next

Step 3: 3D Printing

I use Cura to slice all my 3D Prints, I use glass plates to print and a lacquer, I don't have any print issues anymore like prints lifting etc and the finish is awesome.

Nozzle temp is 210Degrees, Hot Bed 70 Degrees. 20% infill

I have a Creality CR-10 which is quite old but since moving onto the glass bed the prints are fantastic, and also a Creality CR-10 Pro V2 which is great now I have it sorted.

Check out the Maze prints, the detailing is spot on with no issues.I 3D printed the first Maze, it was too big, would fit half way into the cube, back to the drawing board and scaled the component down a bit changing the overall dimensions of the Maze, the issue is not with the 3D print, the cube is not square which is annoying.

I made another Maze, that was 2 of the sides completed, the next 2 would be the same height but narrower, this is where I had to use the Dremel to ensure a snug fit, after a few minutes and using some wax. the 4 Maze's could be slotted in, result!

Now I'm happy that everything works, I can clean everything up and assemble, prior to pushing each puzzle all the way home, I popped in a 3mm Steel ball, the walls of the Acrylic cube contain the balls.

I made another Maze for the lid, I didn't want to use any glues to hold this in place, so I opted for thin double sided tape on the top perimeter edges, it worked out ok, CA Glue does funny things when near acrylic, stay well clear of it.

Step 4: Final Assumptions

When I started this project I had a fair idea that mazes are hard to produce, having attempted looking online there are svg's of a certain type and very basic I wanted to generate my own, so finding the Maze Generator was really good, this was a good starting point, but I still had to do some homework to actually produce anything, the maze generator produces an SVG but nothing you can work with without additional work.

I was really happy with how the 3D prints came out, the actual walls of the Maze are 0.75mm not a lot of room for error, and I am really pleased with the final result, it's a challenge trying to photograph or video it because of all the reflections, I hope you get the idea, the images and Videos make it look a bit more mysterious, just how a Puzzle cube should be.

I hope this Instructable Inspires you to make you own maze, any size is achievable wood or plastic, check out the MDF Maze, the black maze was the first maze I made, the 2nd wood maze is also mdf but betterfor some reason, the 6mm ball run rounds it as smooth as you like.

Thanks for looking.