Sample HiRes STL output file

[ArtF]

Hi John:

  Gearotic Thoughts is really to add functionallity I could no longer add. The STL's from gearotic were not high enough quality
and that has bothered me since I found that out about 6-8 months ago. The SolidCore library i used simply couldnt extrude
more points and its limit wasnt enough to make hi tooth count. Also , the helicals and bevels ( which most of the 3d printers
wanted) couldnt be done form their STL's. So I decided to write my own 3d stl based program. In its first stage it will load a
GM project, re-extrude the gears to hi-res toleances and prepare them for 3d printing. All of us have seem 3d printed mechanisms
that move after printing. ( bearings and such), but the truth is such things are very hard to build unless your a CAD/CAM expert,
or at least very good at it.
  SO stage 2 of Gearotic Thoughts will be the modification fo models to include things liek keyways and collars, and modifiction
of shafts and gears so that proper clearances are in them, and tie them all into one STL file that cant print as a complete mechanism.
  Stage 3 is to add 2d CAD capability so that a person can draw and extrude shapes and mechanisms of their own design. Cant promise
exactly what it will do, just that thats the road Im currently walking. I tend to let the road lead me to whatever place I end up.

  Gearotic Thoughts will be a free addon to GM and Ill start releaseing Alpha's and beta's as soon as I figure it has enough
functionallity to be usefull.

:)
Art

[John S]

Bollocks,

Now gotta go buy a 3D printer - sigh...................

[ArtF]

lol..

  Look at the bright side, you loved the laser you got. You may want to wait till Ive had time to play with 3d printing though, Ive been very
slow to jump in because I truly dislike many of the photo's I see. Poor resolution, step artifacts and such led me to believe quality is
a big issue. Thats why I spent over a year experimenting to see if I could design my own with everything from ink to laser. I failed. 

  The quality appears to be getting much much better though on FDM. Polymer UV seems the highest resolution, but I suspect we
can all imagine what priting resin smells like and is like to clean up. Supports in the print are a concern, hard to say how hard they
are to deal with, also hard to say how hard it woudl be to control some of these machine without the manufacturers software..one reason
the one I ordered isnt a reprap , I want to see the current software protocols and how they function. I want to push the envelope of a
machine like that to see if its a toy or if it really fits properly in a shop and can make good bevel gears or not. ( I must admit, one of my
priorities is bevel gears, their too hard to make, and take too much prep, a 3d priter may be able to solve that one for me as a programmer
since Id be very pleased to at least be able to say one can 3d print a nice working bevel. So I'll let you know soon enough what I like and dont like
and will be able to tell you if its a shop necessity, or just cool to play with. If it DOES work, I have a 3' x 3' robotic arm Ill make into a huge 3d printer
by adding an extruder to it.

:) , bah, you probably want one anyway, stop being cheap.... lol

Art

[BobL]

Bollocks,

Now gotta go buy a 3D printer - sigh...................

Join the club John...lol


Bob

[John S]

lol..

 Look at the bright side, you loved the laser you got.

:) , bah, you probably want one anyway, stop being cheap.... lol

Art

The laser is awesome.
Just bought a new milling machine to replace this POS Bridgeport, still a Bridgeport type turret mill but on steroids, the knee weighs about as much as the POS.

But what to call it ?
The POS Bridgeport was famous over 18 forums as being made out of licorice.

So I thought...... and though..... and then thought of you Art.



;D

[ArtF]

Stop linking your damn photo's.. , upload them so I can actually see them. :)

Art

[John S]

Updated the pic.

[ArtF]

rofl... Now THATS funny.. lol

Art

[ftkalcevic]

This is really good timing.  I've just got my 3d printer running and wanted some things to test print.

I created a helical knuckle gear.  Output was 7MB.  I loaded it into Slic3r.  I complained about "The input file contains a hole near edge...".  I get this regularly so I just ignored the message.  However, when I tried to generate the gcode, Slic3r failed with "Can't call method "retract_length" on an undefined value".

So, I uploaded the .stl file to cloud.netfabb.com and let it repair it.  It came back as a 1MB binary stl.  Slic3r reads it without complaining.  It also generated the gcode, so it's printing now.

Frank

[ArtF]

Hi Frank:

  Thanks for that.  The current STL output is bad from GM, Ill release GT as soon as it can save all the stl's.
You might try the one I posted earlier, it should have no holes. Im working very hard to make all gears come out as totally closed manifolds. ( Which i the case of a bevel is a true bitch.). Im getting close though. :)

Please let us see the gear you print..Ill be doing so soon myself, so Im interested in how various printers react. Im hoping to support 3d printers ina  much larger way than before.

Thx
Art

[ftkalcevic]

Here are my gears. 

I have a makerbot plastruder mk5 hooked up to my cnc router.  I've replaced their motor with a geared dc motor with encoder.

I still have to tune my 3d printer.  The bottom layer still comes out wider than subsequent layers which makes gear meshing a problem. (you can see that on the rack and pinion zoomed image)  I also have problems with the plastic flow.  When the motion slows down, the plastic seems to continue oozing leaving clumps.  When I accelerate, it doesn't come out fast enough and leaves gaps - this was noticeable on the rack where it zig-zagged slowly printing the teeth, then zipped along the back.

The helical rack was created by taking a 2d rack from GM, and doing a profile extrusion along the path of the pinion edge.  This was done painfully using alibre design.  (I had to slice one tooth out of the pinion to make the object manageable by alibre design) I used GM to create the gear, netfabb studio basic to repair the stl, wings3d to cut out the tooth, instep to convert the stl to the step, alibre design to make rack, then exported as stl to slic3r.

This was printed using 0.3mm layers.  I think my nozzle has a 0.45mm hole (that was the largest drill bit that fit in the hole), but I got the plastruder so long ago I can't remember and it isn't for sale anymore.

Frank

PS  What's GT?

[ArtF]

Hi Frank:

  Nice photo's, thx. I appreciate the description, its what I commonly hear, ..use one program to edit this and another to do that
and a further one to do another thing..

GT is "Gearotic Thoughts" , GM has reached an internal level of complexity that its hard to expand, its also limited by its licensed extruder code. GT is the next iteration , at first it will be a post processing facility to load GM projects and reextrude them into stl's that are closed manifolds so that 3d printers will accept them
directly. It uses my own extruder code with no size limitations other than memory. Slowly it will grow to replace GM's functions with more intuitve and more powerfull ones. It will be released in alpha just for the use of creating stl's to print from in about a month or so I think. Its a new GUI, framework and class structure that shoudl be much more friendly for expansion. Its much like the day I had to dump Mach2 in favour of a more expandable mach3. Only this time the result will slowly take over, with functions added over time as we find we need them.

Thx
Art

[ArtF]

Ohhh, a photo of the gear in GT..

Art

[John S]

Opened the spiral bevel in cut 3D no problems, tooth shape looks good, same as yours.

However it machines lob sided ?



I know Cut3d can do them as i have actually cut them before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV8Dq6mslnE

[ArtF]

John:

That picture looks weird to me for some reason.. I have cut3d and havent tried it on them.. Ill let you know what I find..

Art