Hi Guys:
NOTE: [ Test ended. Thanks to the 20 people who downloaded, please post your experiences. ]
Gearotic motion could use a few testers to play with it for a few days. Id like to know if the program exhibits technical difficulties on various cpu types.
Some things work, some dont. . The program can save projects you make, and if you send me the project file I can send you dxf ( 3d and 2d) of your
projects as a reward for testing this for me. This test will likely last only a little while so I can see if there are size/openGL issues and such.
If you do something you like, and woudl lilke to actually cut it, just send me a project file you save and Ill make the outputs for you, the output section is not yet
in the program and is a separate utility at the moment.
Here is a (bad) description to get started...
To use:
Youll be presented with the main screen. Hit the "Involute" button or select the Involute tab. Youll see two gears on the screen.
Hit the "Add Master to Project" button. Press OK on the resultant dialog without changing anything.The screen will flick to the project screen and about 2 seconds later a gear will appear. This is the master driving gear. Now select the involute page again. Select again the "Add Master to Project".
In the resulting dialog, check the "4-bar linkage" checkbox. The screen will flick to the project screen again and the Master will be lit up in blue. Click it with the mouse and your new gear will rotate around the master till you click again. Then, moving the mouse will move the linkage around. Click when your happy
with position. The gear is now set and linked. Press Simulate to run it. Using the mouse with ctrl or shift key pressed will zoom and pan.
In general, when placing a gear, you can click a screen gear to select the one you intend to place to, OR select a gear from the project list by hovering over it when in placement mode. Clicking on a gear will select it as the gear your going to mesh to. Once clicked on the selecting gear, it will either place it,
OR a message will appear in the top coordinate line to explain why it wont.
Some notes. ...
To use 4-bar linkage the gear you link to must be smaller or equal to be linked. You can link to a larger gear, but if you do you should ensure that gear does not rotate 360 degrees as the master does. If you violate the rules like making a link gear turn too much thus being in violation of the rules
of 4-bar linkages, the gear will blank out when rotating beyond its capability. If this happens, delete the gear and replace it with a larger one.
To delete a gear, right click it in the Project tree and select "Delete train..", this will delete any gear and all gears attached directly to it.
To Turn a gear.. ( Like rotating a gear on a shaft with a setscrew), select a gear on a shaft by clicking it from the project list. Then use the CCW and CW
buttons to change its primary orientation on the shaft. This is usually only desired with ellipticals on a shaft with a linkage gear to set the "sweet spot" of rotation for the elliptical. ( Youll get what I mean as you play.. ) , thi sis th eonly way to rotate an individual gear in a larger train of gears.
Some gear types do not yet do output, or place on the project screen. ( Planetary configurations do not yet work for example. )
Save or load project with the buttons on the upper left screen. A test project is included so feel free to start by simply loading that project. There is
not yet a progress bar so be patient while large projects load.
Thanks, Enjoy and PLEASE post your comments..
Art
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