Gear-O-Graph



Challenge is a good way to categorize this one. I am not a Mechanical Engineer. I know enough about gears not to smash my finders. SO, what to make for this months challenge? Believe it or not, I was considering a clock. It would have taken me a year to do what Andy did. I also considered (and will try in the future) a kinetic machine. The professional ones are AMAZING!



https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=wood+kenetic+machine&&view=detail&mid=3499056B2ACE6B09A99E3499056B2ACE6B09A99E&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dwood%2Bkenetic%2Bmachine%26FORM%3DHDRSC3



I even considered a marble roller coaster for a little while....



But, to stay at my skill level, I settled on an inspiration from thingiverse



https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:905849



I took on what I call the Gear-O-Graph. I followed Julien's example and used the Planetary Gear Designer to come up with the layout. I deleted the parts not needed and used Carbide Create to design.



Elongating a circle, node editing and Boolean union made a nice handle.

(Please excuse the blatant logo pandering)

First lesson learned, don't cut gears out of MDF. You end up with rounded grooves between the teeth.



Start over with quarter inch birch ply and the handle came out pretty good







On to the gears themselves. I tried a few designs and will go back and try more. Circular is easy enough for a design test, so that is what I cut today. Birch ply again and the holes are a little large, 1/4". Good enough to test...



And final cuts from today.





I'm sure this can be greatly improved upon but learning is the point...right?