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Planetary Gears.

5682 Views 28 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  RainMan 2.0, 
PhilBa
3
Kind of a fun project. See the pictures. Cut on a small desktop extruded AL router. Read about it in more detail here.

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BalloonEngineer
If you set it up with the proper “joints” in Fusion 360 you can animate the gear train inside of Fusion 360. I have a model like that somewhere. Use “motion links” not “contact sets”.

Some friends of mine from my CNC group made a bunch of rope twisters for their (and a few other) scout troops. Utilized exact same gear train.

Very cool.

Gears are a gateway drug, once you start you keep making them. Have you seen the huge Spirograph people make for sidewalk chalk?

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PhilBa
BalloonEngineer said:
If you set it up with the proper “joints” in Fusion 360 you can animate the gear train inside of Fusion 360. I have a model like that somewhere. Use “motion links” not “contact sets”.

Some friends of mine from my CNC group made a bunch of rope twisters for their (and a few other) scout troops. Utilized exact same gear train.

Very cool.

Gears are a gateway drug, once you start you keep making them. Have you seen the huge Spirograph people make for sidewalk chalk?

https://youtu.be/xrlJGkyKVsk
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Yeah, definitely.

By the way, that spiro gear would be a lot better with 3 "ball" wheels.
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R
so, what is the horsepower rating of this, and is there also a gearbox made to contain the lubricant?.
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RainMan 2.0
I’m really loving this setup . Not to bastardize what you’ve done , but someday I’d like to enlarge this by about 4 times and use a low rpm motor to turn the center mounted on the backside and have this as a wall display .

I don’t know how well a cnc would cut 1/2” lexan , but if the gears were made out of lexan , they could be highlighted by LED lighting also .
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PhilBa
Bastardize away! Lexan/Polycarbonate is easily machinable with the right bits. Generally, a single flute upcut "O" works well on polycarbonate. To be honest, acrylic would be fine and a LOT cheaper.
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RainMan 2.0
PhilBa said:
Bastardize away! Lexan/Polycarbonate is easily machinable with the right bits. Generally, a single flute upcut "O" works well on polycarbonate. To be honest, acrylic would be fine and a LOT cheaper.
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Plexi comes in 6 mm and lexan comes in 12mm . Lexan is a fortune here . Actually I bought a piece of 6mm plexiglass which was about 18” x 24” and it was $35 , and the guy told me it would normally be $70 if he had to cut off a sheet , but it was a piece left over from another cut.

Pretty sure a 4x8 1/2” sheet of Lexan was well over $1000 ten years ago . Hate to see it now
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PhilBa
RainMan 2.0 said:
Plexi comes in 6 mm and lexan comes in 12mm . Lexan is a fortune here . Actually I bought a piece of 6mm plexiglass which was about 18” x 24” and it was $35 , and the guy told me it would normally be $70 if he had to cut off a sheet , but it was a piece left over from another cut.

Pretty sure a 4x8 1/2” sheet of Lexan was well over $1000 ten years ago . Hate to see it now
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Interesting. Here (Seattle, USA), I can get either in 6 and 12mm (and lots of other) thicknesses. This is from TAP plastics, a west coast USA store chain but I think most major cities have something similar. A piece of 6mm, 12"x18" extruded acrylic (aka plexiglass) is $14.70 USD. $21.60 for cast acrylic (higher quality, better optical clarity), same size, thickness polycarbonate (aka lexan) is $20.85, for comparison. If find extruded acrylic to be perfectly serviceable for small projects. 12mm poly is, gulp 39.30.

Last time I looked, you can find similar deals for smallish pieces on ebay/amazon though you have to shop carefully as there is a very wide range of prices.

One thing that has somewhat spoiled me is that TAP Plastics has an offcut box - each piece is $1. Some of which are fairly big (12x18-ish isn't rare). I've gone in several times to buy a specific sized piece and found something that would work in the bin. Saves $$$. Helps if you have a decent blade for plastic in your table saw so you can trim it down.

Edit: by the way, I used 4.5mm (sold as 3/16", measured thickness is 4.4mm) extruded acrylic in the planetary gear project. cheaper and has plenty of rigidity for this application.
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UglySign
RainMan 2.0 said:
Pretty sure a 4x8 1/2” sheet of Lexan was well over $1000 ten years ago . Hate to see it now
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Get your machine and experience up to speed and go work for a sign shop :wink:
then you'll have access to a wide range of goodies. Less the wood tho :surprise:
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RainMan 2.0
UglySign said:
Get your machine and experience up to speed and go work for a sign shop :wink:
then you'll have access to a wide range of goodies. Less the wood tho :surprise:
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I’m probably going to go with UCCNC for the machine software , so I suspect it won’t be of much value elsewhere
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