how to design gears?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Igor on April 4, 2012 at 1:35pm

There is not in GH...

But there is a good soft for gear design http://gearotic.com, where you may create some kinds of gears and puts its vectors in the Rhino.

But... in the trial version you can not save vectors file... ;(

Permalink Reply by secondsky on April 7, 2012 at 7:32am

Thanks you, seems cool!

Permalink Reply by Mateusz Zwierzycki on April 7, 2012 at 7:53pm

Well, I dont see there anything that can't be done with grasshopper. (is there really something that can't be done ?)

It's simple to start, get familiar with components like : 

cnr (circle = circle, normal vector, radius)

divide components (divide by length, by distance and by number of points)

sdl (line = source point, direction, length)

addition (e.g. inner diameter + slider value = outer diameter)

extrude

cap

boolean operations

move component (with 2 points vector, simply design one gear teeth and move it to points from divided circle, then use region union)

series component

these components enables you to do 90% of what is shown on the gearotic website...

Permalink Reply by Igor on April 7, 2012 at 9:14pm

...and write script for gear teeth (curve like involute) if you need real geer... ;)

Permalink Reply by Mateusz Zwierzycki on April 8, 2012 at 8:02am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involute_gear

Thats not as complicated as you say. It doesnt need to be scripted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involute

It actually would require only f(x) component...