GearHeads Forum

Steve:

 

I never really stop. If Im not coding Im thinking about what Id like to code or make.
I find since I retired that Im busier than ever. In this case Ive always wanted to make
celtic knots , and though there are many programs that do so it was a matter of honour that I wished to make my own as an educational thing. It was an interesting offtopic
for me and is what I like to spend summers doing. The module is interactive and you can
change the nots in many way, they can be square or circular and are click to modify
with a mouse. A button gives you gray scale photos.

  An upside is also that I think Ive found the issues with bitmaps and video's that some
people had a hard time with, so I fixed that at the same time.

  The Irony ( theres almost always an irony..), is that my laser cannot do grayscale power levels.. might have to try to fix that by getting a cheap one and writing my own control package for it.. Maybe I could call it MachLaser..

Art

Art,

I can't wait for that one.
I've made some similar celtic knots in CAD.
Works really well on my laser.

I've seen a lot of people that couldn't sit still, but nobody....NOBODY...has it as bad as you do.
Good for us, hopefully not bad for you.

Thanks for all of your hard work.

Steve Fox

Hi All:

Thought you might like to see one output of a
utility module I wrote for fun. This output is for co2 lasers
that can do power by grayscale output for engraving....
  It will appear in G2 as a utility module..

Art

ArtF wrote: John:

  Calculator added back in for next release. By the way, if you have two pulleys on the screen,
you can get the belt stats by pressing ctrl and clicking each pulley ( on screen or in tree) so that
two pulleys are selected. The belt tooth count is then put on the screen..

  The calculator is back though for future, but you do have to enter the mating pulley as in G2, only
1 pulley is shown on the designer, so you need to enter its mate, other than that its the same calculator.

Art

That's great, Art! Thanks!!

Dan

I didn't have any luck finding if there was a standard definition of the "best" center of rotation of an object, and how to determine it.  With my current interest in woodturning I'd assume it was the point of least vibration (think lathe jumping up and down), but that's probably not it.  Of course off-center shafts (and turned objects) have their own interesting aspects, but it seems desirable to have a good reference point.

Kirk

@ArtF
Resolved!
Sorry for asking help for so basic parameters.

Have fun !

salu2

Kirk:
kinda the lines Im thinking. Almost any shape will work really, just a matter of determining the correct shaft center distance to allow it. We'll see where it goes..

ARt

I don't know if this is feasible (or worthwhile...), but a wild idea for a replacement/enhancement of imaginary gears:

Take a closed 2D shape with a shaft location (this could be from the old imaginary gear generator or loaded).  Determine a matching gear shape, possibly as an integer multiple of the original, or determine it's not possible and quit.  Maybe some optional smoothing of the original shape to make it work.

For imaginary gears, since they're already gear shaped, stop here.  Otherwise create teeth, like the universal toothing module discussed in the past.

Another option, if the original shape allows (or left as an exercise for the user), would be a spring loaded round (or elliptical, or whatever) gear to rotate the original so the second gear wouldn't overwhelm the first.

Kirk

Hi:

  Yes, the spokes go away automatically if the radius is below a set amount. This is a feature to help stop making spokes on gears to small. Your options menu sets the limit, reduce it if youd like spokes on all gears.

Art

Hi & thanks for that upgrade
And yes the imaginary function is a great artistic tool !
In Version 2 : I' ve got problem to add spoke in "circular spur" -> they don't appear
although NO problem with the helical,knuckle,etc..

....Well , after playing with "teeth" number, it seems that under a  number of  tooth the spokes disappear,but it's clearly linked with the module :
25 tooth with module 4  = no spokes...
25 tooth with module 5 = spokes !
20 tooth with module 6 = spokes !

Any idea ?

Thanks.