Fidget Cube With Upper Hinge Support by jdulrich1

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I really like the original design by Wultz, but the upper hinges on the original did not print well for me, and it is hard to see how they could since the bottom layers of the upper hinges are squirting plastic into thin air and then trying to build on that foundation. I borrowed his design, but basically remodeled it from scratch and have been tweaking it for about 3 months. I tried a bunch of different ideas, but ultimately decided my favorite version was very close to the original, only adding some very insubstantial, but critical supports which allow the upper hinges to print successfully as a bridge.
Once printing is complete, I break each hinge loose as gently as possible, and I usually find it necessary to trim loose material from the upper hinges after flipping them the first time. The loose material from the bridge doesn't fit back into the hinge recess unless I cut it off. I use the flush-cut nippers that came with my Ender 3.
I have had good success printing this with an initial layer height of 0.2mm and a subsequent layer height of 0.16. I'm using an Ender 3-V2 with Cura 4.8.0 and the following settings:
Initial layer height: 0.20mm
Initial layer speed: 20mm/s
Layer height: 0.16
Infill: Zigzag at 15%
Outer Wall Speed: 30mm/s
Inner Wall Speed: 45mm/s
Initial Layer Horizontal Expansion: -0.20mm
I have printed this successfully with every PLA, PLA+, and PETG in my collection.
Edit (5/20/21) - As I was hitting publish on this yesterday, I had an idea for an improvement, and my test print worked so well, I'm uploading it. The version with "extra-supports" will probably result in even cleaner upper hinges with less trimming to do. They will take a little more effort to break loose though.