Summary

Rounded cube gears wrapped in a bumpy texture.

Print Settings

Printer:

Monoprice Select Mini

                                            <p class="detail-setting rafts"><strong>Rafts: </strong>                     <div><p>Doesn't Matter</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting supports"><strong>Supports: </strong>                     <div><p>No</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting resolution"><strong>Resolution: </strong>                     <div><p>0.175</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting infill"><strong>Infill: </strong>                     <div><p>20%</p></div></p>                                                        <br>                        <p class="detail-setting notes"><strong>Notes: </strong>                    </p><div><p>Printed in Monoprice PLA+</p><p>The gear surface patterns are not identical but they're sufficiently irregular that it shouldn't matter too much how you arrange them around the cube, as long as the large gears get pinned to the large faces of the center block.</p><p>Needs 8 pins so you will need to print pins.stl 4 times.</p><p>Tends to squeak but you can apply a little bit of grease at the base of the gears and the center block.  I use a tiny bit of PTFE lubricant for this.</p></div>

How I Designed This

I used the Blender bevel function to round off the edges of a cube. This is pretty straightforward but it creates a ton of internal intersections. I fixed this by shrinkwrapping a fine sphere mesh over the model after I had applied the texture, and using the new mesh as my cube STL.

The texture was applied to the whole cube UV map. I fiddled with the texture until it was somewhat tileable, otherwise the discontinuity at the edges would have left a large and unsightly seam.

Lizard Cube