Projects - Gear Placement

[RichKuzmack]

I started by watching the video tutorials and then experimen ted with the spur gear page, which I found comfortab le and straight-forward.  So I moved on to create a test project with spur gears.  Gear 1 was a 30-tooth driver, which meshed nicely with a 75-tooth Gear 2, and a 20-tooth Gear 3 was compounde d on the same shaft with Gear 2.  So far, so good.  Gear 3 is intended to mesh with a 71-tooth gear compounde d to a 113-tooth gear, but for shaft placement an 80-tooth idler would be inserted in the train as Gear 4.  Except that there was no way to make Gear 4 mesh with Gear 3 in the Projects software, or none that I could find.  It could be placed in mesh with Gear 2, or it could be placed on the same shaft as Gear 2.  And once placed, there was no way to make it move anywhere else. 

So, I would like to make the following suggestio ns for future addition to the program: 

First, the pop-up for adding a gear to the project should offer the choice of specifyin g the gear already in the project with which it should be meshed or the existing shaft on which it should be placed.  And

Second, once placed a gear in the project should offer an 'edit' choice in addition to Rename or Delete.  At least subject to edit should be its position, but perhaps also its number of teeth (less important). 

While I initially thought these would just be 'nice to have' I suspect that they could be critical to making the 'Project'  a viable tool to design and document gear trains. 

Best,
Rich Kuzmack

[BobL]

Hi Rich;
 Thanks for the post.
I think your first suggestio n is already what we have, we can place a gear to mesh with another or we can add it to a shaft.If your add on gear does not mesh it will give you a message why it can't etc... On your second point where edit could be a choice becomes very tricky, as you place a gear, it becomes the focus of anything attached to it. To edit it, would mean recalcula ting the complete mechanism which could take a long time depending on the complexit y of your design and maybe not a good thing overall. I will add your thoughts to the wish list, maybe some type of compromis e can be accomplis hed in the future to make GM that much better.

Cheers
Bob

[RichKuzmack]

Hi Bob,

Yes . . . but

 . . . there was no way to make Gear 4 mesh with Gear 3 in my example.  It could be placed in mesh with Gear 2, or it could be placed on the same shaft as Gear 2.  How can I make Gear 4 mesh with Gear 3?  Am I missing  something?  Maybe this issue should be moved over into the list of bugs to be fixed?  Perhaps its positioni ng could be 'tabbed' to potential locations instead of having a 'pick list' in the add window as I first suggested .  Compound gearing is not uncommon in real gear train applicati ons. 

I appreciat e the issue that an edit feature could be time-consuming. However, your calculus should include the time a user would otherwise need to spend to delete a gear needing to be changed and re-creating it to add again to the project as modified. 

I first thought of the edit feature as a way to get the positioni ng as intended when the program thought otherwise, but upon reflectio n, edit would allow 'what if' analysis to improve the design as well.  That would be an expansion of functiona lity that would be nice 'down the road.' 

But I first need to be able to put gears into the project train where they are supposed to go, and I don't yet see how to do that.  I can't see how to make an addition mesh with the other gear of a compound. 


Thanks for your time. 
Rich

[Joseph]

Hi Rich,
I tried walking through your example and gear 4 seemed to mesh OK with gear 3, maybe I missed something .

Gear 1  30 tooth
Gear 2  75 tooth
Gear 3  20 tooth same shaft as Gear 2
Gear 4  80 tooth meshed with Gear 3

[RichKuzmack]

Hi Joseph,

Thank you!  You identifie d the problem . . . me!  I went back to the tutorial video and watched it again, and realized that I should abandon the graphical placement in favor of using the left-side listing of gears. 

And Bob, you were correct that you already have the feature of my first point, it is just located under the Project Database instead of the popup window.   

 . . . which still leaves editing (unlock, move, re-lock) for future considera tion. 

Thanks!
Rich

[BobL]

Joseph and Rich;

 Guy's I'm no expert with all of this and learning from all of you, so thanks for your input. I know what your asking for in this case with the "edit button" but a solution isn't so easy as I discussed earlier with Art. It is on the list and perhaps a revisit may lead to something else and useful in the end.

 I've been trying to build a do nothing gear box to rotate misc gears to display Gearotic Motion once every 10 turns otherwise they'll be all out of sync. It would be nice to have an alignment grid in the project screen to align everythin g up, maybe something else to add to the list. Also if you add link bars, it is possible to have them hit another shaft while they rotate, must have missed it during my design. I will say though, gear cutting as never been so easy, all of the different types of gears I designed in Gearotic Motion, exported in 2D dxf and cut on my CNC table do roll very nicely together. Maybe time to build a wooden clock of my own...

Cheers
Bob

[RichKuzmack]

Bob:

I agree that a generaliz ed 'edit button' would a major piece of work, and might cause more problems than it solves.  A more limited edit might be worthwhil e without raising all of those problems.

The easiest would be to confine the edit to the last placed gear, the latest addition to the train.  That would let the user reconside r the initial placement without having to delete it and re-add to tweak where it goes. 

A more robust edit would allow the re-placement of any gear along with all its down-train gears as a unit so that the endpoints of the train could be adjusted to fit between two pre-existing shafts or fit into available gearbox space. 

On the other hand, I might expect to start over rather than edit should it become necessary, say, to change to a finer pitch to fit a particula r ratio into that space.  Changing the pitch might conflict with previousl y selected shaft diameters for the smaller gears in the train, for example.  As you've said, compromis es will be necessary, but being on the 'list' is a start! 

The alignment grid you mention would also be a helpful aid and might reduce the need for some editing. and a lot easier to implement I would think!  But I must confess that I do not grasp why your do-nothing display gear train needs to remain in sync with anything . . . so maybe I just don't understan d what you are trying to do with it.  Good luck with it!

Best,
Rich

[BobL]

Rich;

 Thanks for your insights with the edit button, It's on the list, we'll see when Art gets back.

You said " I do not grasp why your do-nothing display gear train needs to remain in sync with anything " The idea is to have a whirly gig rotate a bunch of gears and display the word "GEAROTIC" from behind a faceplate just once while the main gear turned 10 full times around. Like a slot machine displayin g bells,cherry etc.. To do this I'm using 8 independe nt gear drives linked off the main gear, each having their own gear  ratio to rotate then all off sync from each other, except on the 10th rotation where they will all be sync again. I'm using a non circular for the final gear in each of these assemblie s where I carved out each letter of the word gearotic, therefore on the 10th full rotation, infront of a slotted faceplate it should display "GEAROTIC". Does that make sense? Good idea I think but no so easy to accomplis h yet...lol

Cheers
Bob