Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Gearotic Motion Gearing program.

Hi Doug:

>>How would Gerotic Motion revise or shorten this procedure?

Well, for larger gears (MOD 2 up maybe..) you can just use a 1 - 3mm cutter to cut the teeth and the spokes directly from its output in 2d. Though I tend to go from Gearotica to VCarve at the moment as I havent written the Gcode output section. I may add rotary output for the teeth as well, I havent decided on that as yet. Originally it started as a way to get elliptical gears to experiment with, but as I went ratchets, involutes, cycloidics, helicals, lantern and other types of gears just seemed to be desireable to have as well. Really, the program is meant as an easier way to get dxf's of gears of various types,but the simluator was alot of fun, so it was expanded to be a creativity tool. Experimenting with various connections and gear combinations is a good way to visualise a project without having to know cad, cam or anything about gears. In the later case it shows alot of promise as an educational tool, after a couple hours playing with it you tend to learn a lot about geared mechanisms that you may never have considered. One beta tester commented that it was "Mechanical Porn" , which seemed a pretty good description. You can create some wild looking mechanisms, my max was about 80 gears so far before it starts to run a bit slow.

The mechanisms are drag and drop for the most part, meshing is checked to some degree for gear compatability, the placement is graphically done
and very easy. Once you have a runnign mechanism you select an output manager and what gears ( or all ) you wish to output. For each gear selected
a set of files are put out.. .stl, dxf2d, dxf3d, print file, and finally a gear shaft drill file to align them on a holder plate. As you select gears you can get an approximation of the gear train ratio, current RPM compared to the master gear, and other data that can help in building a mechanical project. It isnt meant to replace any high end simulator or CAM systems, more for the hobbiest who hasnt the time or desire to learn all that fancy software, he just wants to impress the wife or friends. :)

There's an awfull lot of possible additions that can be done to a program such as this, but the program will follow Mach3's type of development, registered users can tell me what they would like to see, and if Im up to the task Ill see if its possible. It will be inexpensive, and of course updates will be free. If it is popular, it will become a long term project that builds as we go from a functional and fun base.

Im really hoping it will allow the casual hobbiest to do things only a serious hobbiest could do in the past in terms of geared mechanisms anyway.
In answer to Mikes question on a site, the site will be www.gearotic.com when its turned on, the program will be pretty inexpensive for the
gearing world at 75.00.

Thanks,
Art




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