• Gear Contact Calculator

    06/15/2020 at 05:08 • 0 comments

    I threw together a super simple gear contact and size calculator. Input gear details, output is distance to space them from each other (and size of gear, evaluated as dp + 2*a):

    https://sharpcoder.github.io/gear-utils/

  • Gears Academy

    02/02/2020 at 22:02 • 0 comments

    I've been working on a software project recently called http://www.gears.academy/ and the idea is to accumulate all the knowledge I can about how gears work, how they're designed, and how you can 3D print them.


    In order to help convey the ideas, I wanted to make an interactive gear viewer to allow people the ability to tweak variables and see how it impacts the final shape of the gear. So far it's coming along great! If anyone has ideas for improvement, suggestions about what kind of content might be helpful, or wants to contribute - all the code is on github. https://github.com/SharpCoder/gear-academy

  • Idea: levitating motor

    07/04/2018 at 20:18 • 0 comments

    I'm obsessed with the concept of a "levitating motor" and I would like to do some tests eventually which involve electromagnets. Technically the motor would not have to levitate. I'm more interested in whether I could control the position of a circular platform which has a magnet on it by pulsing an array of electromagnets which are strategically positioned around the platform.

    This is kind of how a stepper motor works, right?

    My theory is that it would be possible to adjust the position through acute pulses. Maybe even with a high degree of precision. On the other hand, I suspect it would require an inordinate amount of energy to do correctly and it may have a lot of heat dissipation issues. Plus I suspect it would not be able to sustain much weight. Also I guess it would be acutely susceptible to other electromagnetic forces, so maybe the top part of the platform would require shielding... The odds are against me and this is probably going to be one expensive motor, haha.

    But it would be really cool if the position of the motor were determined by back and forth pulses rather than "steps". I envision a world where I can give a rotational angle rather than an amount of steps and the motor would be able to point to that location.

    Perhaps someday I will have enough time to investigate the feasibility of this kind of design.