Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

BillM
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Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

I've been trying to reason out the logic behind the fuse operation.

I start with an asset that's a horizontal bar with its shaft defined at the left end of the bar. I add it to the workspace. I then add the bar again attached to the shaft of the first bar but this time I change its angle on the shaft (e.g. 30 deg). The two bars correctly appear with the 30 degree angle between them.

I've tried to fuse the bars:

First try: I selected the 30 degree bar first and the horizontal bar second, then select fuse. The horizontal bar snaps to the orientation of the 30 deg bar.

Second try:
I selected the horizontal bar first and the 30 degree bar second, then select fuse. The 30 deg bar snaps to the orientation of the horizontal bar.

I've tried combinations of locking the bars to the common shaft, setting the bars as Rotational lock but the result on fuse is always the same...the second bar selected snaps to the orientation of the first.

I beginning to wonder if that is the way the fuse between two objects on a shaft was designed to operate.

Bill
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ArtF
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Hi Bill:

No, you've found a bug there. They should simply fuse at the spot and in proper orientation as they sit at fusetime.
I must have screwed up a matrix, Ill fix it up and let you know.

Art
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Hi Bill:

Version 1.14B is uploading now. It fixes the fusing of objects, they may now be in any orientation or placement, need not touch or anything
and physically simply make the object into one object. It also fixes a problem with the control hulls by making them match up properly
as well as I found trouble there.
I also added an Ortho camera ( checkbox on sim screen.), you can use this to switch to the orthogonal mode display Gearotic has.
The skybox is off in this mode as ortho mode has no perspective. Objects do not shrink as they go off into the distance. This is actually
the typical mode of a cad program, but I dont think it helps a lot in placement, I add it simply as an optional aid for those instances
where it may help judge sizes without parallax having so drastic an effect.

Art
BillM
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

I've loaded V1.14B.

The Orthgraphic view has been a helpful one. Previously when designing the gravity escapement, I'd attach extra shafts to an object but rotating the object would then leave the extra shafts behind.

I've now decided to create pins that I would then fuse onto objects such as the driver disk or the escapement arms. Placement of these pins is much more accurate now that the parallax effect is eliminated with the Orthographic view.

The corrections you made to fusing works well. As a side note, the Undo operation now operates correctly on fused items.

Bill
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

Another thought about the Fuse option. Under normal circumstances when you create an asset the shape needs to be convex. With patience, it should be possible to create a concave hull shape by fusing together a bunch of smaller convex shapes.

I don't know if this would allow for the creation of a verge/crown wheel escapement but the thought would be intriguing.

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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Bill:

Yes, using fusing any hull construct will work as they are simply concatenated on to the new single object. In theory quite a complex hulled object
can be made, though I'm not sure how that might affect speed. I'll keep my eye on that. Thanks for all your testing, Ticker gets better each bug and
may one day be ready for a full release. I think I need to add "Add Primitive" for quick additions of planes, rods, cones and cylinders as
raw objects for quickly building a stage upon which the various objects can interface.
Im continuing to play with various ways to setup the staging.

Thx
Art
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

Attached is an experiment to create a crown by fusing multiple 15degree segments that I created using Fusion360. I'm not sure how to interpret the results just yet.

I placed the Crown with its axis at 90degrees to the work bench. The model is not stable and the Crown does not rotate. Eventually the Crown flips teeth downward toward the work bench and goes unstable.

I imagine that the Crown's hull structure may be taxing the physics computations. I've looked at the Forces during simulation and also at the Cartesian view. I've played with the mass of the support post to be 100 and the Crown and its shaft to be 0.1.

I'll continue to play with this structure except keeping the Crown horizontal which does seem to work.

BillM
Attachments
A-CrownV01.zip
An Attempt at a Crown at 90deg to work table
(206.91 KiB) Downloaded 62 times
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Thanks Bill:

Ill do an analysis

Art
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Hi Bill:

First..awesome crown. That is built very well. The problem isn't the crown itself. I noticed you have a shaft inside a shaft where they
join to the vertical shaft. (if selected you can see there are two there.) If I erase that shaft the physics start to work more normally
but a swinging motion gets created.

I do see the real trouble is the orientation locking and position locking. They are causing havoc because of the way they
are implemented. It seems Orientation lock doesn't like anything off of the Z-- axis. Rotating the crown to the Y-- axis makes
the orientation lose its mind. I will recode this to a new constraint type as Im not happy with the way those locks
operate. The crown itself seems fine, if a bevel were used to get that 90 degree change to the Y it likely would work good,
but Ill let you know when I manage to fix the code on position lock and orientation lock.

Art
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

I started to play with the vertical crown gear but created a bracket to mount the crown in a vertical position. That attempt did not work too well, the secondary shaft mounted to the bracket was not stable when the crown gear was mounted on it. I then read your comment about bevel gear and that gave me a work around for the craziness of the horizontal axis of the crown gear.

The attached zip file uses bevel gears as mounting points for a verge-like construction.

The pallets need some work probably are too thick and positioning is still tricky. Movement is a bit jerky but not bad for a first attempt.

There was some rotational movement of the crown relative to the horizontal bevel's shaft so I fused the two together. I added a bevel gear set to the end of that horizontal shaft in an attempt to provide some stability. I notice that the horizontal shaft starts to move around on the right hand bevel gear set. That motion causes trouble between the crown and the pallets. This is definitely a work in progress.



BillM
Attachments
A-CrownVertical Bevel.zip
First attempt at a crown / verge type movement
(835.63 KiB) Downloaded 56 times
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Hi Bill:

Ahh.. I see where your going there. That works quite well as a start. I think Ill add a button to export an object as an asset
when loaded within a project so I can reuse things like that great crown gear you made.
Yes, adding a gear to a shaft suddenly makes the orientation work properly as a workaround.. I'm working on a more permanent solution.
I have already modified the gear orientation and position locks, next I have to do the objects in the same way.
Ill let you know when its ready, Im investigating a few other oddities I dont like in there.

Art
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

I've attached a copy of the crown gear asset in case you'd like to play with it. The one in the model that I sent previously had the crown gear fused to the bevel gear in an attempt to stabilize the pair.

The shaft through the Crown and the two bevel gears does seem to wander as the simulation runs which raises havoc with the mating of the pallets. It's almost as if the shaft and bevel gears are colliding with each other.

In some of my other experiments, I've found similar interaction between the shaft and its object. Turning off shaft collisions sometimes corrects the problem.

BIllM
Attachments
Crown-Gear.zip
Experimental Crown Gear
(192.1 KiB) Downloaded 60 times
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Thanks Bill:

Ill investigate that. While a shaft will not collide with its master, I have seen where an attached gear can collide with its mate shaft
in certain situations. Im hoping to see some improvement as I change the "lock Position" and "Lock Orientation" code.
In the past, these were done by setting the angular or linear factors to zero. (This means all forces, angular or linear, were
zeroed on an object every frame.). I never liked it as it violates physics, all natural forces should be used really, so I'm recoding
so that if locked in position , for example, the forces are not zeroed, but symmetrically opposite forces are added instead.
This allows for these forces to be propagated properly through the model, Im hoping this will improve things markedly so that perhaps its not necessary to put a gear on a shaft to stop an object from moving inappropriately. It may make a "position locked" object more susceptible to motion from immovable object meets unstoppable force type situations, but Ill try it as I think it is more accurate to nature and
perhaps more stable. We'll see. :)

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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by ArtF »

Bill:

V 1.15b is online. Its changes may seem subtle, but the orientation and position locks now apply a force to correct and are
constraints of their own. This at least means the total force in the physical system is as expected and therefore spreads properly
to other objects causing a higher level of stability and fewer "weird" response variations. I see see some errors in some of my tests so I still have work to do, but they appear mostly object specific, ( the bevels have a strange torque on them Im looking into for example).

Playing with this escapement of yours in the new system , I can see its really close to doing as its supposed to. That crown and lever
I think will end up as an MTass in the release. I really like the various ways of making a physical 2-5 piece mtass file that is an escapement
that stands on its own as a device. Thanks for the idea's and the items, I suspect they'll end up in a release and video one day. I'll name
any MTass'es from them as "BillM Escapement Devices". Ticker could end up being a nice clock designing tool with a lot of work
and additional math tools.

Art
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Re: Exploring fusion of objects, shaft

Post by BillM »

Art

Good Job! I loaded V1.15B. The crown-verge escapement is now stable. Ran for a long time without the shaft becoming unstable.

I've included an updated version of the escapement. The project is saved at a half-speed time scale. I've modified the pallets and have been experimenting with the phase angle between the two pallets. Keep in mind I'm a retired electrical engineer and not a clock maker. I've made some reverse engineering guesses based on photos and videos of such an escapement to build the model.

At this point I think the "conversational" physics look correct. At slower speeds ( ~.1) you can see the recoil of the crown gear when it hits a pallet. I played around with the mass of the balance wheel and the operation of the escapement did change.

The second attachment is the crown wheel supported in the vertical position by a right angle bracket. This one shows instability of both the bracket and the shaft that the crown wheel is attached to. My thoughts behind the bracket is that components in a design might be mounted off a bracket rather than simply floating in space. Perhaps this type of mounting should not be bothered with.

Do you think I should create a new topic about this escapement? Perhaps some other member might want to experiment further with this third version of the crown-verge escapement.

BillM
Attachments
A-CrownVertical Bracket.zip
Experiment crown wheel mounted vertically on a secondary shaft attached to a bracket
(218.2 KiB) Downloaded 61 times
A-CrownVertical Bevel-3.zip
A crown-Verge escapement experiment
(849.71 KiB) Downloaded 57 times
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