Rotate them 180 degrees about the y-axis. Mirror these bodies across the new construction offset plane.įinally, select the pair of cubes on the end along with their four half hinges. Select the pair of cubes along with their four half hinges. Set the offset for the construction plane to be 0.2 mm. Again, use the face of the exposed hinge as the mirror plane.Ĭreate an offset plane on the inner face of the two middles cubes. Mirror the cube with both of its half hinges. Use the face of the exposed hinge as the mirror plane. Start with the cube placed at the origin. It is time to mirror and duplicate as needed to create the other 6 cubes. Repeat this same process to create the pins and sockets for the other three hinge halves.įinally, the base two cubes and their associated two half hinges are complete. The complete hinge/cube connections are shown. Now, repeat the cut and extrude process for the pin/socket that protrudes from the cube body. Ctrl+select the appropriate faces to see through the bodies and double-check. Your pin and socket should be nested inside each other as shown. Perform a 3 mm extrusion at a -30 degree taper angle. Select the internal 2.6 mm circle profile. Once the hole has been cut, you can do the extrusion for the pin. Make sure you have the body visible so you can successfully perform the cut! You should now have a conical socket. Perform a 3 mm extrude cut at a -25 degree taper angle. Select the outer 3.0 mm ring profile and the internal 2.6 mm circle profile. Repeat this same process to create the pin and socket pair for the other three half hinges.Īfter completing all of the sketches, it is time to create bodies from the sketches. Then, create two identical 2.6 mm and 3.0 mm center-diameter circles using the projected center point. Use Project/Include to project the center point of the circles from the previous sketch into this sketch. To do this, create a new sketch on the face of the hinge on the opposite side. Next, you will need to make the pin/socket on the right side of the hinge. The center point should be a distance of 3.5 mm away from each of the edges. One should be 2.6 mm in diameter and one should be 3.0 mm in diameter. Create two center-diameter circles with the same center point. Select the inner face of the hinge hole on the cube for your sketch. Start by creating the sketch for the pin/socket on the left side of the hinge. When it comes time to make an extrusion or a cut, make sure you have the bodies' visibility turned on. You may have to toggle the bodies on and off to make the profiles visible. Since the sketches will be placed in a 0.4 mm gap, it can be difficult to be sure you are selecting the correct profiles. I standardized by making the pin exit the cube on the left and the pin exit the hinge on the right when looking at the front face of the half hinge. To make the pin/socket on the left side of the hinge shown in the image, the sketch will need to be created on the inside face of the cube. To make the pin/socket on the right side of the hinge shown in the image, the sketch will need to be created on the face of the hinge. The sketch should always be made on the face where you will extrude the pin from. In order to make each hinge, you will need two identical sketches on different faces. Now, it is time to make the pins and sockets to connect the hinges to the cube. The design files are also available on Thingiverse.
Eventually, I determined that creating conical pins and sockets on the hinge and cube would provide the most freedom of movement without sacrificing the strength or durability of the assembly.Ī complete walk-through tutorial on creating this design in Fusion 360. I then proceeded to try pairs of rounded interlocking pins. These rods ended up restricting the movement too much and would wear down over time. At first, the cubes had a rod that traveled all the way through the hinge. There were a few different revisions for this design. Other times, you may have too wide of a gap that it may come apart or it may bridge poorly and become hard to move. Sometimes you might not have enough clearance and your design may fuse together. The designs typically use loosely fitting joints/hinges with enough of an air gap around them that they move freely, but not enough that they come apart. Print-in-place designs can be tricky to perfect. I will walk you through the creation process and provide the design files and STL files for you to modify and print your own customized design! There are several existing designs on Thingiverse however, they don't provide the design files for customization. I wanted to design one on my own using Fusion 360 to 3D print in place. Infinity cubes have become a popular fidget gadget.