Labyrinth Puzzle Box Fusion 360

Fusion 360 designed, Resin printed on the Elegoo Mars.

These little maze boxes have been the most fun I've had since I got my 3D printer. Great for putting money in and giving to someone for Christmas or birthday... with a clear one It takes 1-5 mintues, but you can see the maze. A normal print may take up to hours to open....

I first saw a version of these on Thingiverse by sneakypoo, where my inspiration was sparked. Here's the link..

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:201097

But I wanted my own maze design, and I wanted the maze part completely hidden inside the lid. (don't print it clear then right?) So here's the ins and outs. I hope you enjoy the process almost as much as you'll enjoy watching people struggle.

I'm a complete beginner to CAD anything this last year, just graduated from tinker-cad to fusion 360 a few months ago; so If I can do it, You can do it. Vote on the 3D printed contest if you learn something useful.

Step 1: Sketch a Circle/cut the Circle.

1.Sketch a circle using the center diameter circle tool. I made this one 30 mm across.

2. zoom in.. You're going to cut out a piece of the circle, to help later on.

3. make a square about 1mm wide crossing your circle for reference, and use the trim tool under modify to cut out the section of circle intersecting the square, then delete the square.

Step 2: Create Flange From Arc.

1. Under the sheet metal tab, use the create flange tool. I made this one 50 mm tall.

2. Use Side 1 to create the flange in the flange dialogue box... if you do this, it will use the guide as the inner diameter. If you choose side 2 or symmetrical, you'll lose inner diameter.

3. apply flange. Flanges are amazing, because you can unfold them, modify them, then re-fold them with those modifications.

4. Under Modify in the sheet metal tab, you'll find the sheet metal rules option. This is where you change the thickness of the flange you just created. I made this one 3 mm thick.

Step 3: Unfold Flange

1. you'll have to select one face where the circle was cut (shown in pictures) and use the extrude function to extrude a small section of flat surface connected to the outside of the curved flange. This will allow the flange to unwrap along a straight surface with a reference.

2. Extrude the face about .5 mm (you created a 1 mm gap in the sketch in the first place so it shouldn't close the cylinder completely.

3. Unfold cylinder. Your first selection is the reference point for the unfold, which will be the flat surface you just extruded, and the second selection will be the cylinder's outer surface.

4. Change your view to the OTHER SIDE of the flattened out cylinder... this means we will now be working on the INSIDE on the cylinder, not the outside.

Step 4: Sketch Maze on Flattened Flange.

1. Select new sketch

2. select the face of the flattened flange you want the plane of the sketch to be on. In our case, it's the BACK of the flattened out flange, so it'll be the INSIDE of the cylinder once we re-fold it.

3. Use the Line function to draw out your maze.

Maze Design Principles

A---I use a 5 mm snap grid to easily draw out my maze.

B---have one entrance and 1 exit/end point. I put my end point all the way to the bottom.

C--Don't put maze channels too close to the top, or the inside piece will be able to just pop out without going through the whole maze (more info in video on this point.)

D-- If you don't want to modify the maze later, make sure you go all the way to the edge (including the little extra extrude you did earlier to unfold the flange.. it will snap a little shy of this point when you are sketching, I fix this later on without fixing my sketch, but you can fix it here too) (if you don't know what i'm talking about, you will later)

Step 5: Extrude Sketch

1. In the surface tab, click on extrude.

2. Select all of the lines of the sketch of the maze. It helps to rename the sketch to MAZE so you can make it hidden or visible in the browse at any point.

3. Use the extrude function to extrude the maze into thin walls. (really they have no dimensional thickness at this point). I use 2 mm extrude, but it doesn't matter how tall it is as long as you know the dimension.

Step 6: Thicken the Walls of the Maze

1. Under the SOLID tab, use the thicken function under the create drop-down.

2. The wider the maze, the better, as long and you still have separation of the channels, because the wider the tab going through the maze the less likely it is to break.

3. I thickened this 2 mm symmetrically (on both sides of the extruded maze), using the options in the thicken pallet/panel, so my channels are 4 mm wide.

Step 7: Recess Maze Into Flange

1. Select the top face of the maze.

2. Use the extrude function under the solids tab

3. Extrude the top face of the maze down into the flange, it should automatically select "CUT" in the panel for you.

I used -4 mm because I knew my maze was 2 mm tall, and that I wanted a 2 mm deep cut into the flange, because I made the flange 3 mm thick. This makes a 1 mm wall on my cylinder where there is a channel, and a 3 mm wall where there is not.

Step 8: Fix the Edge (If Needed)

1. When I drew my sketch of the maze, I did not extend the lines far enough to the edge, so when I fold it back together, there will be a wall where I want the channels to actually connect (see pictures)

2. Select the faces that you do not want, then extrude them using the cut function to remove this part.

3. this whole step can be skipped if you extended your sketch correctly in the first place prior to extruding and thickening the maze.... re-folded before and after are included so you kinda get what's going on here if you don't fix this.

Note on Selection.. If I want to select a face, and not part of the sketch, Go to the drop-down menu on the select button, and apply selection filters. You can filter to only select faces, or edges, or anything.. VERY helpful when trying to get to a small piece in the middle of your creation.

Step 9: Refold Flange Back Into a Cylinder.

1. When first I tried this, I had somehow changed the flange into a body or a component. Bodies and Components will not re-fold.

2. If you've done things correctly, You can go back to the sheet metal tab and click refold (Far right on the toolbar).

3. you've now got your cylinder back, with the maze on the inside!

Step 10: Patch the Cylinder

Remember the whole thing you've just made still has a big slit in one spot where the gap was made in the first sketch with the circle.

1. We will patch the cylinder using the loft tool.

2.Select loft in the solids tab

3. select inner face of the gap for selection 1, then the other inner face of the gap for selection 2.

4. This should patch it up nicely if you did step 8 correctly and have similar shaped faces on each side of the gap.

Step 11: Extend Maze Cylinder and Close.

When all is said and done, there will be a tab on the inner cylinder going through the maze you just created.

That tab should not be on the VERY EDGE of the inner cylinder, for stability. I like it inset at least 5 mm from the edge. In this case, I want the maze to end 5 mm short of the inside of the maze cylinder...(again, better explained in the video). This helps it not to bind, and also it makes it so you can't cheat.

1. select the bottom face of the cylinder. create sketch on that face.

2. draw 30 mm circle, and 36 mm circle. (same as the flange size) Don't just select the edge of the cylinder and extrude it, because there's a gap where your maze stopped, and you don't want that gap extending with the extrude.

3. extrude 8 mm. (I'll take out 3 mm of this with another extrude to close the top) so there will be 5 mm inside, and a 3 mm thick bottom)

4. After the 8 mm extrude, create another new sketch on that new bottom face, and use the inner 30 mm circle to extrude 3 mm back towards the cylinder. (this closes the end).

Notes: When you extrude any piece, use the JOIN function on the extrude panel. This makes things in the browser easier to work with, because it will join the body you already have, without creating all sorts of random pieces. It will also make it very easy to export later as an STL for printing.

Step 12: Create Outer Design of Maze Box

Now that it's closed, I'll make the shape of the outside of the maze a little more interesting than a straight up cylinder.

1. Select the bottom again, or go back to the same sketch you used for the 3 mm extrude (it's on the same plane)

2. Select Circumscribed Polygon, start in the center, and drag one side out to the edge of the cylinder.

3. I used the Fillet tool to round off all of the edges of the sketch, with a 10 mm radius.

4. Draw circle (36 mm wide) of the outside diameter of the cylinder on the same sketch.

5. select pieces of the corners (all of them using the shift key)

6. Extrude the length of the maze cylinder, and make sure you're using the JOIN function still, not new body or new component. I extruded this 58 mm, the length of the maze box at this point.

Step 13: Create INNER Box Cylinder.

The inner box will be slightly smaller so it will have enough room to move around inside of the maze.

1. I use the plane of the TOP (opening side) of the the maze, and create a new sketch.

2. Use the center circle tool, I make a circle 29 mm in diameter. I want this to be 2 mm thick, so I make the inner diameter 25.

3. Extrude a cylinder from this selection. You have to either finish the sketch first, or just press "e" for extrude, then select the part of the sketch you'd like to extrude. I made this 55 mm in length, the inner length of the maze box. (58- the 3 mm thick bottom)

Step 14: Create Inner Box Lid.

We're going to want this lid to be the same size and shape on the outside, as the maze box part. Since we already created the filleted polygon on the maze box, and this new shape is already lined up with that, we can re-use the same shape for our sketch with the Project function of the sketch tool.

1. Select the top of the new inner cylinder, and create a sketch on that plane.

2. select the BOTTOM edge of the outside of the maze box (the rounded hexagon) using the shift key and selecting the edge all the way around.

3. Under the sketch tab, click down on the create---project. then apply the projection.

This will create a projection of the polygon onto your sketch plane.

4. Extrude (I used 5 mm) using the JOIN function in the extrude panel.

Step 15: Add Maze Tab to Inner Box

For this part, you're going to be creating the tab on the inner box that will have to go through the maze. Because we want the tab not to be RIGHT on the edge of the inner box, we're going to offset it about 5 mm.

1. We're going to hide the maze box for a second so we can select the bottom (open side) of the inner box.

2. Under The construct option, create an OFFSET PLANE. I set it back 5 mm from the bottom of the inner box.

3. Create a sketch on new offset plane.

4.Now, when the sketch is created, you are editing the sketch, now hide the inner box and show just the maze box. find the END of the maze, and select the bottom face of that section. (shown in pictures). Sometimes it helps me to use the wire frame view, but it can get confusing.

5. Use (again) The create--->Project function to project that channel location, width, and depth to your sketch plane.

6. Now, go back to the top view so you can sketch well from the top, and draw again your 29 mm diameter circle. Then, draw in the sketch of the tab.

7. Extrude the sketch UP on the cylinder 3.6 mm using the join function on the extrude panel.(because the channels are 4 mm wide and tall. You want a little wiggle room)

Step 16: Fillet Bottom and Top of Complete Maze Box

1. Select fillet tool in the solid tab, and click on the top or bottom edge of the maze box, and apply the fillet. I used a 3 mm fillet to round things out a bit.

Our model is complete at this point. The next step will be to export as an STL file for 3D printing.

Step 17: Export to STL for 3D Printing

1. Optional step, I like to flip and move the inner box just to it's easier to orient my print in the slicer program later. To do this, in the solids tab, select the move/copy button and use the rotate and translate functions to move the body around. When rotating, I use the x axis as the reference for rotation.

2. In the browser on the left, Find the body of the maze part. If you have done things correctly, ALWAYS using the JOIN or CUT function when extruding or adding to the maze or box, then it will select the whole thing, with no missing pieces. Not cool using new body or new component when modifying things with extrude function. It will mess you up.

3. Right click on the body, and select export STL.

4. save for 3D Printing.

Step 18: Completed STL Files

Free gift for ya - here are the STL files created in the written portion of the instructable for you to print and test as you wish (the video tutorial is a different maze pattern).

Please let me know how your prints and designs go! Upload a photo or video, and throw me a vote in the 3D printed contest if you learned something. Thanks for reading.