Summary

My wife asked me whether I could make a "diagonally decomposed cube" to get her maths students thinking about other kinds of pyramids than the classic one with the "summit" above the centre point of the square base.

Print Settings

Printer:

Velleman K8200

                                            <p class="detail-setting rafts"><strong>Rafts: </strong>                     <div><p>No</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>0.5mm</p></div></p>                                                                                <p class="detail-setting infill"><strong>Infill: </strong>                     <div><p>Hexagonal</p></div></p>

How I Designed This

I designed it in SketchUp by taking a cube and then doing some trig to figure out the angles I'd need to rotate two large flat planes so I could slide them through the cube to "cut" it into the pyramid shape.

I exported it as STL from SketchUp then ran it through Microsoft's 3D Model Repair Service (URL below), sliced it with Slic3r and sent it to my Velleman K8200 with Repetier-Host.

http://netfabb.azurewebsites.net/

The original design has the square base of the pyramid with 3cm sides but you can scale it as you see fit. You will need 3 to make a cube :-)

Beware that the way up I printed it, I found the tip wasn't cooling fast enough so got a bit squished. I used a metal file to tidy up the "blob". The blue one I printed last and got additional cooling for that stage so that one came out better.

I would consider printing these again but with the pyramid on its side such that the last to print is an edge not a dot in case that helps the heat dissipate more quickly.

Diagonally decomposed cube