Wizard for clockmakers.

[John S]

At a recent show we had a Sieg X3 on show running Mach 3 and it attracted a lot of interest in the various applications it can do, especially the wizards.
One question we were asked quite a few time was if there was a wizard for crossing out clock wheels ?

Basically this is one operation carried out by clock makers all over to turn a plate wheel into a spoked wheel.
I'm afraid I don't know a lot more but can contact some clock makers if someone wishes to have a go at doing the wizard ?

John S.

[Ron Ginger]

My first reaction is that this is a task better suited to a CAD program. But it would be possible to do one if I had a set of proportions that were standard enough. For any clock one would want all the wheels to be of the same proportion, just different diameters. Let me think about this one for awhile.

[vmax549]

John would this more or less be a gear making wizard?

[John S]

No, what they class as crossing out is removing the bulk of the wheel in a horizontal plane to create spokes.
Here's an example.



Besides all the usual tools, feeds and speeds etc a simple wizard will need ID, OD, number of spokes, thickness and radius of the corners.
Possibly a method of selecting just the inner corners as the outer is usually determined by the cutter diameter.

On this page is a free piece of software called Master CNC Utilities that can do this and other useful wizards.
It writs direct to the PP and doesn't produce usable code that can be transferred but the "Cut spoked wheels " is something that a lot of model engineers want. Not just restriced to clock wheels but also useful for loco wheels.

http://www.colinusher.info/Software/

[Ron Ginger]

Since it 'on my list' to someday make a clock, this interests me.

Would it be acceptable to do a  simple scale factor, keeping everything in the same proportion? If so, I could generate the geometry in a CAD program, then the wizard would simply scale the job based on the outside diameter of the wheel. If I let the user specify the individual widths and arc radii then it gets a lot more complicated.

Would 3, 4, 5, and 6 spokes be enough?

I assume the wizard should allow for a rough pass and a finish pass, select a cutter diameter, and set total depth of cut and steps depth.

I can do this, if there is interest. Show of hands please, for those interested?

[tmsmith]

Me for one Ron.
Malcolm Smith

[coogrrr]

O...O... ME TOO ME TOO!!!

lol

But , yes I would be very interested.

Coog

[Ron Ginger]

I have an idea on how to do this, and one that could make quite a few shapes. I think I can write gcode for a cross-out of a 'unit circle', then just scale the code to get whatever size wheel you want. Its an interesting problem, Ill work on it, but Im leaving in a week for a 6 week road trip across the country (want to do my part to help the Oil companies profit :-) I dont expect to have this for a while.

[coogrrr]

No rush. Have a safe and enjoyable trip. Where you can use electric cars, bicycles, skateboards, pogo sticks, and dog sleds, and that will help me put an extra poke in the oil-company eye!

Coog

[woffler]

i am very interested .this would be of great help to me.as i am about to atempt to build a model steam engine for my grandson.