Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

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BillM
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Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

Post by BillM »

Hi Art:

I created a large simulation of an E Howard Company Tower Clock earlier this year using Gearotics.  This simulation is being used to document the design of an existing tower clock.

The goal of this post is to not only share my large Gearotics simulation model of the tower clock  but also to share custom indicators and a gear library that I created in support of the simulation model.  The model is stored on a google drive and the following  is an unrestricted link to the GTH file because the file is too large (size ~100MByte) to directly post on the forum.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8aAv ... 0J0TGp5WHc

Included in this post are :

1. Jpg of my EHowardCo Tower Clock Simulation
2. PDF  EHC-Simulation-2016-0606
3. PDF  MyCustomIndicators-2016-0606
4. ZIP  MyGearData.zip

EHC-TowerClockSim
The first attachment jpg is a screen capture of the model.  If this strikes your interest then read the next two PDF files.

EHC-Simulation-2016-0606.pdf
This file describes some of the design features and trade-offs that I made while constructing the model.  I do plan to write-up a functional description of the operation of the clock at a later date.

MyCustomIndicators-2016-0606
I created some custom "indicators" to dress up the tower clock model.  This document describes the purpose and use of the various indicators.

MyGearData.zip
Contains the following folders & subfolders:
    EHC-SimulationFolder
          EHowardTowerClock-GearLibrary folder: gtlib files of gears contained in the simulation
          EHC-MotionWorks.gth --  a small subset of the overall simulation that shows the motionworks of the EHC tower clock.
          Simulated-3D-Vane.avi -- video  focused on a subset of the full model.
    MyCustomIndicators folder contains DXF files of the "custom indicators" used in the simulation.

Bill
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MyGearData.zip
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EHC-TowerClockSim.jpg
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ArtF
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Re: Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

Post by ArtF »

Bill:

Very nice. Is that flutter wheel used to simply slow the chiming chain? Good idea there...

As usual from your end, much better than I could have done, your a patient crafter..

Art
BillM
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Re: Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

Post by BillM »

Hi Art

The "flutter wheel" is trying to simulate the look of a vane.  The vane on the clock serves as a governor for the strike side of the Tower Clock via air braking.  The angle of the vanes are adjustable which would change the speed of the strikes.

Did you have a chance to try the download link and look at the actual sim model?


Bill
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Re: Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

Post by ArtF »

Bill:

  I did, looks very good. I really must try to make those sims shorter files some day, but then they contain a lot of info on each gear..

Art
BillM
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Re: Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

Post by BillM »

Hi Art

I kind of hope that publishing such a large simulation model might inspire the Gearotics newbies to explore the various features built into the program...especially the ability to match existing gears either from physically measuring gears or getting general specifications from drawings or published photographs.

For example, the motion works in the model was based on a photograph my co-worker took while examining the E Howard.  I made a best guess estimate of the larger gear's size, counted the number of teeth in the gear, knew the desired 12:1 reduction and then played with Gearotics features to create the approximate gear pairs.  When we get to overhauling the motion works I'll get a chance to see how close I came to the real thing.

I've been for most part sitting quietly on the side reading the posts & responses on the forum.  It does take a lot of studying, trial and error to learn features and capabilities of Gearotics but well worth the effort.  The youtube videos that you posted are quite useful in learning Gearotics.  There were many times when I first started using Gearotics that I was tempted to ask in the forum how to do or accomplish something...but what's the fun in that.  I've always loved the challenge of learning new topics or gaining new skills.

When I retired in 2007, I considered it more of a graduation than an ending.  I've been exploring new topics ever since.

Bill
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Re: Gears and specialized indicators used in a E Howard Co Tower Clock simulation

Post by ArtF »

Bill:

  Well, youve done well.

>>When I retired in 2007, I considere d it more of a graduatio n than an ending.  I've been exploring new topics ever since.

  Me too, its where Gearotic comes from really..  I use Gearotic ( and Auggie) as base frames to hold various experiments I do, its why strange things like Web->3d exist or celtic knots or slicing, just things I happened to get interested in during the journey.

There ARE quite a few things in Gearotic poorly explained, or even hidden or not turned on. On the other hand for its
primary purpose of designing and machining gears its pretty well explained. Eventually I hope to turn more on, and tie things together better. It actually has modules for things like image segmentation and digitial subtractions and such, I just never got around to providing a way to use them. Theres just so many interesting things to explore and so little time to code.

  Great work, its quite a simulation, Id imagine the education has been fairly extensive... :)

Art


 

   
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