GearHeads Corner

I've created a gear train composed of 4 spur gears with a module of 0.6185, with the following gears:

Gear 1: on shaft 1, 10 teeth
Gear 2a: bottom gear on shaft 2, 46 teeth, driven by gear 1
Gear 2b: top gear on shaft 2, 10 teeth
Gear 3a: bottom gear on shaft 3, 50 teeth, driven by gear 2b
Gear 3b: top gear on shaft 3, 12 teeth
Gear 4: on shaft 4, 56 teeth, driven by gear 3b

Saved the project then tried to output all the gears to 2D dxf; the program crashes (real crash, no error message) on gears 1, 2a and 2b.
I then recreated them one by one on an empty project and successfully output them to dxf.
The only parameter I've changed was the 'gear point dist', that I've changed to 0.005. The units are metric.

Carlos:

  Thx for  the note. Can you send me the project so I can see if it crashes here.
Ill be using new code in future for DXF's I think, but Id like to see if I can fix that one up
in GM as well.

Art

I had the same problem with 2D-DXF running elliptical gears, then ran a 3D-DXF and it worked correctly - unfortunately my CAM wants 2D. I also tried G Code and that worked. Went back to 2D-DXF and it worked for one gear (the more complicated one) but not the other, and now instead of crashing it hangs showing about 1/3 progress on the bar.

Tried a test with the basic default spur gears and the output worked correctly.

Tell me how to attach a file or give me an email address and I'll send you the gprj file (I assume this is the one you want).

Hi:

To attach a file, just hit reply to this post, and on the bottom is a checkbox called "Additional Options" ..
click it, hit the browse button to find the gprj file and it will attach to that post.

Thx
Art

The file should be posted.

Running a few more tries to help you nail down the problem. I downloaded the new development version 4.890, same problem.

I redrew the project (it's only two simple elliptical gears - and its just a test case) and it worked. Not sure what is in the gprj file but perhaps it corrupted somehow.

Ok - it worked, sort of.  When I recreated the first (simple) gear I could get Output Manager to create the DXF file. This is basically all I was after since I already had a DXF of the larger gear. But when I recreated the larger gear I can no longer generate a 2D DXF for the smaller gear - but I can for the larger gear.

I have attached this file as well.

Hi:

  First file I can save dxf's on both gears. Second file seems corrupt and will not load at all.
Ill keep looking into what can corrupt them in that way, since its switching gears itr must be
some setting in the setup Im thinking.. just cant think of what. :)

Art

Art,

I tried again today, started from scratch, and everything worked correctly! Exported both gears as 2D-DXF files.

I posted the file in case you wanted to see if there were any differences with the other files.

Off to cut gears  ;D

I am having the same problem with Gearotic crashing while trying to generate an escapement.

I will attach the project file to this post.

My windows XP boxes don't give much feedback, but my windows 7 gives this additional information:

Thanks,
rick vannorman

----------------------------------------------------------------

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name: BEX
  Application Name: GearoticMotion.exe
  Application Version: 1.0.0.1
  Application Timestamp: 518ce174
  Fault Module Name: GearoticMotion.exe
  Fault Module Version: 1.0.0.1
  Fault Module Timestamp: 518ce174
  Exception Offset: 001b6e5e
  Exception Code: c0000417
  Exception Data: 00000000
  OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
  Locale ID: 1033
  Additional Information 1: c165
  Additional Information 2: c165d7ebf346e73e7f2a0bb454321fc4
  Additional Information 3: a732
  Additional Information 4: a73251eac62c8088a73a25acdfbd398c

Read our privacy statement online:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid= ... cid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
  C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

I just found an interesting corner case to this problem: if I generate a 3d-dxf file first, I am
able to generate the 2d-dxf file. Otherwise, the 2d-dxf generation makes a hard crash...

Thanks,
rick vannorman

Rick;

Thanks for the feedback.. Will investigate why this problem is happening only to some and not others, hope to reply back soon.

Cheers
Bob

It appears to be related to the file system but I havent yet been able to track it down.
  It wont happen here, but I did have a similar problem long ago where the file folder was not being
created properly.. Im still looking fir such an issue.

Art

(P.S. After my original posting I realized how far out of date my version is/was... I've moved to 4.890 and testing there now.)

In 4.710 I have been having a lot of crashes when generating 2D dxf's as well. I haven't been able to nail down something specifically re-producible, but it might be file system related.

One thing that might be file system related, that creates plenty of unexpected behavior...

I accidentally named a second gear the same name as an existing gear (e.g. GT2-5-110T), and that caused all sorts of havoc. There was no way to select the second gear of the same name in the project list, and deleting would delete anything from the first same-named gear down the train. I've played around with simple projects now, with multiple gears of the same name, and the output manager just seems to output the first gear, although it highlights them both/all.

Definitely some weird behaviors if you inadvertently make the naming mistake. I haven't found a way to recover from it, other than starting over. I thought the naming issues might have been the root of some of my crashes, hence the testing of it, but it seems only tangentially related to the 2D dxf crashes I'm experiencing.

--Jon

Ok, same crash on outputting 2D dxf files... I still can't find a way to reproduce the crash consistently, but it is definitely still happening in 4.890 on my Win7 machine.

Attached is my project file with 14 GT2-5 pulleys of various sizes (10T to 150T). If I start by selecting one pulley, then click Output Manager, leave the default "Rounded Corners" checked, and only click 2D DXF, then Create Output, then repeat with each pulley, most times it crashes by the time I create the 10th or 11th pulley.

On the last crash it wrote the "-Params" file before crashing, but crashed before writing the .dxf or -Comped.dxf.

Not sure if that's any help or not.

--Jon

Thx Jon:

Ill give it a try..

Art