REVOMAZE User Group

I have very recently been plunged into the world of burr puzzles.
The natural entry for me has benn to purchase a set of 20 pieces, which according to the manufacturer can produce 151 different 6 piece burrs.

I have an issues with this, which is that many of the burr's uses the same 6 pieces, but in different assemblies, however this makes it impossible to know if i have solved the puzzle proposed in the list, or another one with the same pieces, except if i look at the solution (which i dont).

I have seen that for the creative crafthouse 27 piece burr set, Zen Puzzler made a pdf with interesting analysis of the possible assemblies, and he has somehow taken the solutions proposed by burr tools and removed all the assemblies/solutions, that include the same 6 pieces, leaving him with 535 combinations of 6 pieces, that only have one solution.

How do i achieve this in burr tools, it gives me an insane amount of solutions with holey burr's and i can see that some of the 6 piece combinations have 150+ solutions, but i see no way to filter them, without going through them manually, and deleting "duplicates".

Another thing i stumbled upon during this was a mention that in a holey 6 piecs burr, there can only be 20 holes in the completed assembly, of the 32 possible holes. Can anyone explain the reason/math behind that?
I should point out that it's not a mystery to me that not all 32 possible holes can be empty in an assembled burr, but how is the specific 20 holes decided upon?

KeeZor wrote:I have very recently been plunged into the world of burr puzzles.
The natural entry for me has benn to purchase a set of 20 pieces, which according to the manufacturer can produce 151 different 6 piece burrs.

This sounds like you bought the Philos set (or something similar).

KeeZor wrote:I have an issues with this, which is that many of the burr's uses the same 6 pieces, but in different assemblies, however this makes it impossible to know if i have solved the puzzle proposed in the list, or another one with the same pieces, except if i look at the solution (which i dont).

This confuses me. I've never come across a set that uses the same pieces for any two problems, usually there's at least one piece different. All of the 151 piece sets that I know of have unique solutions for each of the problems.

If you haven't already, you may want to have a look at these links for more information on the 6 piece burr:
http://web.archive.org/web/200608160134 ... rInfo.html
http://www.johnrausch.com/PuzzlingWorld/chap05.htm

bluesign2k wrote:

KeeZor wrote:I have an issues with this, which is that many of the burr's uses the same 6 pieces, but in different assemblies, however this makes it impossible to know if i have solved the puzzle proposed in the list, or another one with the same pieces, except if i look at the solution (which i dont).

This confuses me. I've never come across a set that uses the same pieces for any two problems, usually there's at least one piece different. All of the 151 piece sets that I know of have unique solutions for each of the problems.

The Chinese Cross Pentangle set that I have has this problem. I'll post some more details here in a bit.

bluesign2k wrote:

KeeZor wrote:I have very recently been plunged into the world of burr puzzles.
The natural entry for me has benn to purchase a set of 20 pieces, which according to the manufacturer can produce 151 different 6 piece burrs.

This sounds like you bought the Philos set (or something similar).

KeeZor wrote:I have an issues with this, which is that many of the burr's uses the same 6 pieces, but in different assemblies, however this makes it impossible to know if i have solved the puzzle proposed in the list, or another one with the same pieces, except if i look at the solution (which i dont).

This confuses me. I've never come across a set that uses the same pieces for any two problems, usually there's at least one piece different. All of the 151 piece sets that I know of have unique solutions for each of the problems.

If you haven't already, you may want to have a look at these links for more information on the 6 piece burr:
http://web.archive.org/web/200608160134 ... rInfo.html
http://www.johnrausch.com/PuzzlingWorld/chap05.htm

Correct, the set i have bought, is the one produced by Philos

I have not made a complete analysis of the 151 suggested combinations, but by taking only combinations that included piece O and 2xA, which is a total of 17 entries of the 151, only 8 of them have unique combinations, the remaining 9 are entries with 2 or 3 combinations of the same pieces.
However you are correct that the solutions are unique, but the combinations are not.

I have made contact directly to Zen Puzzler, and he has given me a few hints, which has made it possible for me to make further progress in my analysis of the philos set, and which unique combinations it might contain.

Interesting. I completed the 151 piece Philos set myself a few years ago. It was one I borrowed from I friend so I don't have it to hand now, but I feel sure that all the 151 problems had different sets of pieces... maybe I'm wrong, maybe the instruction sheet has changed and there are typos?

I'm curios though now, so I've just bought a copy I tried to get a set ages ago, but at the time I could only find 1 place that sold them and they were very expensive.