When I looked through Thingiverse to find an impossible object, I was drawn to the “infinity cube” by mosb1000. The design almost looks paradoxical at first glance, made of a continuous loop bent in the shape of a cube. While not strictly impossible to create without 3D printing, such an intricate design would be challenging to fabricate with subtractive manufacturing methods and would most likely require skillfully bending a loop of wire.

I scaled the object to 25% and FDM-printed a test object with supports and a raft. The supports were almost impossible to remove since there was a substantial amount inside the cube, so for the other cubes, I printed without supports. Out of the three I subsequently made, one was missing a side.

I also printed two cubes using the SLA resin printers. After removing it from the printer, I removed the supports and washed it in ethanol before curing it. I noticed that, for SLA printing, the artifacts of the manufacturing process are more pronounced. The places where the supports attach to the device left bumps, unlike the relatively clean separation of the FDM prints.

Cost Estimation:

Labor:

3h * $7.25/h = $21.75

Material & Tooling:

$7.88 /object * 6 objects = $47.28

Cost per object was based on a quote for a 3D printed part supplier. (3D printing quote)

Total Cost: $69.03