New Release Version 4.90.02

[dansfoundry]

Art, I am making a drive for a solar heliostat and need a four foot dia. half gear with small teeth about 1/4 or 3/8 inch nothing critical. Also about a 2 inch or so pinon, again nothing critical. Thanks Dan

[ArtF]

Ill leave the pinion to you as I ditn see tooth cnt..but heres a dxf of a mod5 245 tooth radius of 2foot
so 4' dia. Seems to work fine here. Youll notice at that size the teeth are basically pressure angled
straight teeth..thats normal as the radius to tooth ratio is very very high..

Art

[dansfoundry]

Thanks Art that will get me started. I salvaged several hundred high quality laminated mirrors ,4'x4' from left overs from a large array solar project and need to do something with them, so I will be making some gears to track the sun, haven't nailed down a design yet but I will post pictures as I proceed.  You need a heliostat to shine some light on your projects:>) Thanks a lot Dan

[ArtF]

Dan:

Ahhh, I see. Probably be easier to simply cut half circles 4" in diam..then attach a wire rope to each half end so it runs on the perimiter.., and use a motor to drive the wire thus rotating the "gear".. Save cutting a lot of teeth, and just as accurate. Also stops weather from affecting the teeth as there are none..

Art

[dansfoundry]

Sounds interesting can you draw me a picture? I'm a visual guy:>)  Dan

[ArtF]

heres a dxf...dunno if you can read it. Think of it like cutting a barrel in half, mirrors go inside barrel, rope gets tied to edge then wound round the back of the barrel and tied to other edge., If you put a pulley on that rope the barrel will rotate with pulley..

[dansfoundry]

Thanks Art I get it ,I like it, I will let you know how it works, Dan

[ArtF]

Hi All:

  Just a note to say thank you for your patience since last release and your kind comments on it. Ive
  been taking a couple of weeks off from development to use the softare myself to build a project.
  As a developer the greatest trap you  can fall into is not using the software because your too busy
  developing it. Ive been finding several  things wrong, or inconsistancies or weirdnesses that it takes
  me awhile to build anything as I keep having to recode to fix things. That, of course , is the whole point,
    Im much more likely to find rough edges if I use it myself. Im building a chrono escapement kinetic art piece as a test ,
  and Ill make a video as soon as its ready...provided I stop finding things to fix. :) . Crash reports are way down
  so I think the main kernal is starting to play well with the various modules. Youll see more fixes in next release.
 
    Ratchets and geneva's will be the next modules to be developed,but things such as calculators and such will be done in parallel.
   
    Just a progress update.,.
 
  Art
   

[Mooselake]

I found what looks like a few bugs:

Media snapshot creates a file that's all blank.

I can't find a way to link gears that are connected together, think a smaller and larger gear that are concentric.  They can link to the same shaft, but if they spin on that shaft and share it with other connected pairs (trios, etc.) they don't want to link.  If I set up several of them and click simulate, half the gears disappear.  Interestingly, clicking new will leave ghost gears that don't show up in the project and can't be deleted.  The only way is to exit and restart GT.

Material types aren't saved in the project file - I'd used them for highlighting individual sets of gears.  Reloading the project file sets everything back to the default material.

Also, a change request to consider.  It would be nice if there was a way to thin the (whatever the spoke area is officially called, the space between the hub and rim).  I'd pictured options to reduce (or even increase, if negative #s) the spoke area by a percentage or distance on both the top and bottom sides, and also at the hub.  I'm not sure if it would be desirable to allow changing the hub and rim percentage just for the thinned area or not, and maybe it would fit nicely with the spoke options.  It would be real handy for stl 3D printer files, and it seems pretty common on commercial gears.

example:  top spokearea /xxx/  bot spokearea /xxx/  hub diameter /xxx/  rim diameter /xxx/  top hub/xxx/ bot hub/xxx/

Kirk

[ArtF]

Hi Kirk:



>>Media snapshot creates a file that's all blank.

  Im still unsure why some systems do this. All my computers work properly. Ill keep you advised, but this one seems hard to find.,.

>>I can't find a way to link gears that are connected together, think a smaller and larger gear that are concentri c.  They can link to the same shaft, but if they spin on that shaft and share it with other connected pairs (trios, etc.) they don't want to link.  If I set up several of them and click simulate, half the gears disappear .  Interesti ngly, clicking new will leave ghost gears that don't show up in the project and can't be deleted.  The only way is to exit and restart GT.

Thx. I have fixed a few linkage bugs for next release. Im not sure I understand your description of this one though, Really, only one gear should link to a shaft, the shaft then links to the other gears on it. An object, shaft or gear, may linbk to several object, but should be linked to by only one. So if Gear1 is riving a shaft, you should link
that shaft to gears on it to be driven, but never lik other gears to the same shaft. Make sure any object is driven (linked) by only one object.. It could be my rules engine broke down and allowed you to link several gears to one shaft...it shouldnt..several gears may reside on a shaft, but only 1 may drive (link) it.


>>Material types aren't saved in the project file - I'd used them for highlight ing individua l sets of gears.  Reloading the project file sets everythin g back to the default material.

Sorry bout that, it will be fixed in next release...that IS annoying.. :)

>>Also, a change request to consider.  It would be nice if there was a way to thin the (whatever the spoke area is officiall y called, the space between the hub and rim).  I'd pictured options to reduce (or even increase, if negative #s) the spoke area by a percentag e or distance on both the top and bottom sides, and also at the hub.  I'm not sure if it would be desirable to allow changing the hub and rim percentag e just for the thinned area or not, and maybe it would fit nicely with the spoke options.  It would be real handy for stl 3D printer files, and it seems pretty common on commercia l gears.

  I agree with you. I already have this on my wish list.. gears do look better if the center are is thinned..
 
  Art

[Mooselake]

For linkages I have a project concept with a speed increaser that has two parallel shafts.  The first gear is driven by shaft one and drives the second year on shaft 2, and, has a third gear glued on top of it also on shaft 2 - gears 2 and 3 spin on shaft 2 but don't drive it.    Gear 3 drives gear 4 on shaft 1 but only spins on the shaft, neither driving or being driven by it.  Gear 5 is glued to gear 4 and also not connected to shaft 1.  So g2 and g3 spin at the same speed, make g4 and g5 spin at a same and faster speed.  Eventually you get to the fastest gear x which is connected to a shaft that's concentric to shaft 1, but a much higher speed.  Does that make sense?  G1 is driven by shaft 1 and drives g2.  G2 drives g3 via the glue but does not drive shaft 2.  G3 drives g4 but not shaft 1, and so on.  Eventually gear x drives the concentric shaft around shaft 1.

Kirk

[ArtF]

Kirk:

Yes, sounds reasonable. In that case
Gear#1 should show a linkage to the shaft and to gear#2.
Gear#2 should show a link to gear#3 and to shaft #2
Gear#3 shoud show only a link to gear#4
Gear#4 should show only a link to Gear#5
#5 to #6
#6 to #7 etc..

etc.. so that  Shaft #1 and 2 are used only 1 time in terms of linkages.
They will not place that way as yet,when you place on a shaft it assumes the shaft drives it,
but you should be able to remove the linkage from the shaft and make them
attach to the gear as above manually. The simulator should then figure out that since its mated to
a gear but on a shaft it will turn at 1:1 of that gear.At that point they should simulate properly.

  Ill have to add an option when placing a gear on a shaft if you wish to link it to
another gear on that shaft...hadnt thought of parallel shafting requirment...

Thx
Art

[Mooselake]

Thanks, Art.

I found another possible bug.  I tried to add a second gear, then realized that the shaft spacing was wrong because I didn't add a smaller gear first.  I then deleted the second shaft.  That left a ghost gear - not selectable, and not deletable, that had been on the second shaft.  To get rid of it I had to exit and restart GT.

Kirk

[ArtF]

Kirk:

  Thx, Ill add some security code to the delete module.

Art

[ArtF]

Hi Guys:

  Ive foudn several bugs and have toughened up several sections for the next release.

Thought you might like to see the sculpture Im working on to illustrate the recoil chrono
escapements. Its at ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXr8IHvuwMA

Thx
Art