Panex puzzle 3D for print

Designer

asteed

3d model description

This is a recreation of a puzzle from the 1980s called
Panex
. It is very hard to find originals of this puzzle now. The puzzle gained some notoriet...y for its extreme difficulty. Although it looks like the Tower of Hanoi, the ten piece version required over 31,000 moves to complete. I suggest starting with a six piece version, which takes only 881 moves to complete.
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3d model print parameters

For a puzzle with two sets of six pieces, you will need one upper and one lower piece, and two sets of pieces. I suggest printing the upper and lower... in one colour, and then the two sets of pieces in different colours otherwise you will have an extremely hard time solving the puzzle! The Panex puzzle came in two versions, silver and gold, where the silver had markings on it showing where the pieces went but the gold didn't. Given even the six piece puzzles takes 881 moves, I suggest not starting with the gold pieces (sixpiece_gold.stl), but just the sixpiece.stl. The sliding pieces print in two halves. The pieces that narrow go on the back of the upper, as shown in the last figure. I printed the one in the photos in PLA on an Ultimaker. There are also complete printing plants for six, eight and ten pieces if you want to experiment, and the SCAD source for the curious. A recent paper on the complexity of the solution can be found [here](http://baxterweb.com/puzzles/panex/panex2rev.pdf). The six piece solution takes 881 moves, eight piece 5,359 and the ten piece is predicted to take 31537 moves (which has been [confirmed here](http://baxterweb.com/puzzles/panex/)). The reason the puzzle is difficult is shown in the last but one image: the yellow piece on the right and the red piece in the middle will not slide any further down the slots. Read more

Tags

Puzzle Toy

License

CC Atribution