Jack
Something like this?
The travel is adjustable by moving the peg closer or farther from the gear center, and is limited to a linear motion.
SG
Printable View
Jack
Something like this?
The travel is adjustable by moving the peg closer or farther from the gear center, and is limited to a linear motion.
SG
I'm fairly pleased with the Inkscape gear generator... nothing exotic like square or elliptical gears, but a good solid gear generator.Quote:
Hey guys there is a free vector program, "Inkscape" that will render vector gears of any size: http://inkscape.org/
I made a gear every increment from 6 tooth to 22 tooth, compared pitch circles, and made a grid that three different gears will "play nicely" on. This is for a very mechanically curious 4 yr old grand son... I'll let you know how they work together after I cut them out.
Steve
Looking good Steve!
I would encourage anyone that may be even mildly interested to try some gears, be they electrically powered or not. It's a lot of fun, limited only by your imagination and shop skills!
@ Steve,
Nice... I was actually thinking of just that kind of system for my (almost) 4yr old to play around with but I have never gotten around to actually working it out. If you get it working well, please post. There will be a lot of really happy and engaged kiddos.
@ Jack,
Steve has it right. The diameter of the travel of the pivot point where it attaches to the gear is = to the stroke length of the piston. (if that makes any sense) though you can do it more simply with a slider on the piston and not need to get into making the oval cam. I'll see if I can work up an illustration if I'm not coming through.
Chris,
I would have thought Steves illustration could be done a few different ways. I would think you could attach it at the first peg without the big oval and and just have the tongue connected to the shaft with a loose pin allowing it to pivot.
Yup, exactly.
Steve what size cutter did you use to cut out your gears above?
edit...nevermind figured it out. did you cut yours yet?
I cut a set out of 1/4" Sintra. I didn't leave enough allowance for a loose fit on a 1/2" dowel and need to re cut. First impression is favorable!
I cut them with a 1/8" "O" flute
The grid is 1/2" Sintra
Steve
post that link here or post it to youtube and link it here. How do you deal with friction of the gears on the spacer plate? Do you have any washers behind the gears?
How are you mounting the gears on top of the other gears?:confused:
Judging by feedback and some PMs not every one who's interested in kinetic sculpture is comfortable designing gears... Hopefully this info will help those who want some help and not bore the rest.
The thing with gears is that you are constrained size wise to what whole tooth multiples give you... you can scale them, but only if you scale the whole series.
I'm attaching a file to help make a cookie cutter approach to designing gears that mesh with each other...
I made a series of 6 to 22 tooth gears... they will all mesh with each other as the teeth are all the same size. The series all have three concentric circles on them, the inner most is a .5" diameter center hole for the axel or pivot, make this whatever size you are going to use. Next is the "pitch circle" or the ideal mesh depth. Overlapping these circles in a design will result in interference or really tight gears that are hard to turn... letting a gap exist between the circles results in a sloppy fit, the more it is, the worse it will be. My grandson's game is a compromise of sizes... I chose a grid spacing that will allow meshing with different sizes and at varying hole spacing, but there will be quite a bit of slop with some combinations. The outer most circle is necessary only to allow the gears to rotate about the center point in the design software.
The numbers I have on each gear are its radius... from center to pitch diameter. Adding any two together will give you the ideal axel spacing for those two gears.
My gears all have a .25 hole .75" from the center... this is to allow any two stacked gears to be pegged together... so a larger gear can be driven by a stacked smaller gear (or vice versa).
My first version of the "kids game" resulted in axel holes too small to rotate on the shaft. I redid these, but have since decided that I want the gear axel combos tight and the grid plate to be a loose fit. Ver. 3 coming soon.
Jack, no washers not a bad idea though.
The attached image shows the method of locking two stacked gears together... a 1/4" steel dowel in the hole located a common distance from center in all gears...
Steve
Video of gears in motion!
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8G...WGdGRFlZZWN2QQ
And the .crv file
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8G...U041VjhDblhfdw
Oh Yah... A big hit
(papa got a surprise spring break visitor)
The gears on the table were not the only gears turning! I can see the gears turning in that mind trying to figure out different combinations:D
That's why we do what we do:)
Steve - that is so cool to see what you did for your grandson! Now let's see you do one for yourself,...motorized!
We're all kids, to one degree or another.
I've actually been thing about an idea using lots of moving parts and a clock. Of course the implication will be that the Rube Goldberg devise is involved in the time keeping, but in fact there is no connection between the two. kind of like the pendulum of most battery clocks today.
Steve
Yeah well,... I say the crazier the better! Again, it's only limited by your imagination and problem-solving skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by steve_g
My next one is planned in my mind and it's gonna be nuts, but I don't know when I can get to it.
I liked the way you thought out the stacked gears, Steve. My hand-cut prototype of 20+ years ago had stacked gears and it really adds to the "motion of the ocean".
I really like the idea of shoulder bolts suggested in this thread as well.
Imagine it,.....and you can do it! :cool:
Steve, Mark,
The Rube Goldberg-ish movement was kind of what i had in mind when i was talking about making the tongue move up and down within a carving i had in mind.
As i am drifting off to sleep i lay there and try to visualize in my mind how to make each part or how will they interact with each other. Not only wanted to show gears spinning but instead of just using gears why not use carvings on the face like a compass face, clock face, sun, moon or other 3d carvings on the face of the gear or glued to the front to hide the teeth.
If anyone would like to collaborate on a project i'd be interested in making something that could be driven with a small motor. Maybe we could collaborate to make something then share it with all.......(nah, screw em we'll keep it for ourselves!:D):rolleyes::D
I was thinking about this also.... remember those flat plastic chach-ki's that you might get in a cracker jack box that had say a picture of a pair of lips when you looked at it from one angle and moved it to another angle and you might see a bunch of teeth? What are those called and where could i find something like that?
Jack - hiding the teeth is a novel idea but not possible. You could hide the gears, but not the teeth themselves. It can be done with only the teeth showing. They need to mesh with nothing in the way. Your idea has real possibilities for extended graphics applications that could be tons of fun. If I were gonna go that way, here's what I would do: I would cut gears with no center designs since you won't see those anyway. Just cut plain simple gears with teeth. Next, design colorful/whimsical centers of whatever amuses you and that can be printed by your local sign company on a digital printer that can cut shapes (circles), and apply the self-adhesive vinyl prints to your gears. Do you understand?
Oh man, now you have me thinking in a whole new direction. Way to go, Jack. lol
following up on your "no centers" idea...Rather then put some cheap printed graphic in the center why not do this...
Why not cut your gears so that on the face of the gears the struts are inset say about .25" so that if you were looking at the gear laying flat it would look like a bowl shape.
Then take carving of various things that you could insert into the bowl shape so you could interchange different carvings or rearrange them to come up with different designs?
If you were thinking of making these and selling you could standardize the gears and change the faces for different designs:eek:
Quote:
printed by your local sign company on a digital printer
Hypnotic spirals?
I have a bunch of RGB LEDs left over from a business venture I sold... I'm thinking there aught to be a way to have a ring of LEDs on a gear that change color as it turns. I'm thinking old school contacts here, not sensors and microcomputers.
Steve
Jack... I'll collaborate any way I can...
Cheap printed graphics? They won't look cheap as long as the graphics are tight, printed at high resolution, and look good. It's a way of adding a lot of color and design that would be eye-grabbing and fun with many possible themes for gears.Quote:
Originally Posted by myxpykalix
Don't discount print just because you have a Shopbot! One of the best signs I ever designed and made was a routed 2.5D job that was centered around exactly the kind of print I'm talking about:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...2/Spike005.jpg
The sign was 4' in diameter and the customer raved over it! I would have taken me (or anyone else), a month of Sundays to carve that image 3D and paint it, and it never would have looked as sharp as the print did! NEVER!
YOU'RE GETTING SLEEPY....SLEEPY....YOU HEAR NOTHING BUT THE SOUND OF MY VOICE.....:eek:
I never sleep..........Quote:
Originally Posted by myxpykalix
mARK I WAS THINKING IN TERMS OF WHAT MY CRAPPY B/W PRINTER WOULD PUT OUT (OOPPS) like above.
I remember that sign when you first made that...Follow my thinking here...how i see your sign would be to keep the center with the deer static and the outside ring of the scope and name let that revolve.
That might need some type of movement like a clock that has a inner shaft for the faster second hand and a hollow collar for a slower hour hand?
and i thought i was the only one up nights....the only thing is i need to be back in my "sanctuary" before the sun comes up:rolleyes:
I understand your idea, but it could get quite complex and in the end, not as amusing as "everything spinning" for a typical kinetic gear display. The idea is for everything to spin, Mr. Jarvis! lolQuote:
Originally Posted by myxpykalix
Here's an idea: since these are "planetary gears", design and build a motorized wall display of our planetary system with the sun in the middle, nice and bright yellow with a smiling face, and all of the planets spinning around it! Colorful digital prints of the planets sized, cut and applied to the gears could make for a dazzling and fun display!
Are you gonna make me do this? :p
Steve check this out
http://www.xoxide.com
http://www.xoxide.com/cooljag-pro-flash-80mm-fan.html
"Are you gonna make me do this?"
you mean its not done YET? c'mon man! :D
That might be a fun project.I don't think i want to see the gear for YurAnus:eek:
I wonder how we can pin this thread or subscribe to it to keep it from fading way back?
Mark or Steve...i don't have it but there is a shopbot app called "Spiralizer" and a spirograph app (I think both made by Bill) that probasbly would make good designs for whirly things on the front of these gears.
Not that i want to do this but, you said you couldn't cover the teeth...well i think you can.
Think about your sculpture laying flat on the table and you are looking at it from the end. Well if your shafts holding the gears extended out past the gears at different heights you could glue your faces on the ends of the shafts and have them overlap each other which might make for a interesting visual:eek:
Too much fun for an old man... The triple stack of gears in the center all move at a different rate, some double stacks rotate in reverse to each other... The whole thing is a sea of movement! I've got a clock movement coming that has an extra long shaft... It'll come out of the center of the triple stack. I'm going to redo the grid to accept threaded brass inserts and use shoulder bolts for the gear pivots... I don't have a motor to drive the gear train yet, but I'm working on it. What do you think... is the colored plastic cheap looking? Do I need to redo the gears in various wood species?
Steve
No i like the different colors. Let me ask you, you had some gears sitting off to the side of the material, should those be moved on and cut? What about the ones at the top? You only had the ones at the bottom toolpathed. Are they all compatible with these gears?:confused:
Jack
Any of the gears in that series will mesh... but the ones I toolpathed will work on the grid. If you want to establish axel spacing determined by radii, use any combination!
Who knows why I have some off to the side, works in process?
Steve
Steve, I disagree with Jack. I think it's time for you to move on to some nice wood of different species and do a very cool motorized display.
You have come fah, grass hoppa!
Keep up the good work, keep having fun, and by all means keep us posted!
Edit to say, "some off to the side" is a good thing as it adds to visual interest. Paint outside the lines, my man!
I have 2 motors coming in a few days, hopefully i'll be able to cut some gears and make something spin.
"some off to the side"
On my down load file I have some gears "off to the side" or not on the main work area... My habit when I work is to discard items off to the side, I never delete something because so often a train of thought runs through a previous idea.
The down load file I provided includes all gears in the series from 6 tooth to 22 tooth these gears are all grouped at the top of the work area... It's my habit to create "master" patterns that I don't alter. My work flow would be to make copies of the masters, ungroup the copy, modify them and toolpath them. but never the "master". Make sense?
Steve
No! :D hahahahaQuote:
Originally Posted by steve_g
Jack
I found a spirograph generator in Inkscape... just a few items down from the gear generator.
Steve
Eee gads, Steve! It would take a month of Sundays to cut/engrave them designs! Y'all are gettin' way too fancy for me!
A few "elements" i've been thinking about, maybe more for a flat sculpture then one that hangs on the wall.
Do you recall "forbidden Planet" and Robby the robot? he had some cool stuff going on in his head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a63i4rGZ1ts
Frankly my favorite robot was GORT...Klaatu, Barada, Nickto! :eek: