Clockmaker hack cheat tool generator#

The most impressive part machine is that it was made almost entirely with hand tools. The dividing plate can be rotated about its center and translated along linear stages, and a pin drops into each hole on the plate as it moves to index the location of each gear tooth and lock the machine for cutting. The gear-to-be is mounted in the center, atop a hole-filled plate called the dividing plate. It is placed adjacent to a gear cutter, a spinning tool that cuts the correct involute profile that constitutes a gear tooth. machine, made from brass and wood, is simple in its premise. Of course, cutting your own gears isn’t any fun if you didn’t also build the machine that does the cutting, right? And let’s be honest, what’s the point of making the machine in the first place if it doesn’t double as a work of art? Some of the more adventurous may even laser cut or 3D print them. Ordinarily, when we need gears, we pop open a McMaster catalog or head to the KHK website. It sort of reminds us of this three-ringed perpetual calendar, but just a bit more stochastic.Ĭontinue reading “This Classy But Chaotic Gear Clock Keeps You Guessing” → Posted in clock hacks Tagged acrylic, brass, clock, cog, gear, random, time We’re not sure we’d want this on our nightstand, but it’s certainly a unique and enjoyable way to show the passage of time. The clock runs through its initialization routine in the brief video below. There are some really nice touches, like custom-made brass screws, a CNC-engraved brass faceplate with traditional clock art, and a Latin inscription on the drive cog for the hours ring that translates roughly to “Time rules all.” When we looked that up we found that “tempus rerum imperator” is the motto of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, the very existence of which we find pleasing in the extreme. The finished version of the clock is rendered in brass, acrylic, hardwood, and a smattering of aluminum, with a case reminiscent of the cathedral radios of yore. The inner ring represents hours and the outer minutes, with the numbers on each randomly distributed - more or less, since no two sequential numbers are positioned more than five seconds of rotation apart. He started with a laser-cut plywood prototype to get the basics worked out - a pair of nested rings with internal gear teeth, each hanging on a stepper-driven pinion. It’s the work of, who clearly put a lot of work into it and pulled out nearly every tool in the shop while doing it. This nonsequential gear clock aims to break that predictability and make for a timepiece that’s just a little bit different. Clocks are predictable by their very nature, and therefore somewhat boring. There are a lot of ways to tell time, but pretty much all of them involve some sort of sequential scale - the hands sweeping across the face of an analog clock comes to mind, as does the incremental changes of a digital clock. Of course, we have seen pretty compact strain-wave gears before.Ĭontinue reading “Harmonic Drive Uses Compliant Mechanism To Slim Down” → Posted in Misc Hacks, Robots Hacks Tagged compliant mechanism, gear, harmonic, joint, power, reduction, robot, strain-wave, torque, transmission That might solve the most obvious problem and make ’s dream of a compact harmonic drive a reality. We could easily see that being replaced with, say, a steel spring, either machined or cut on a water-jet machine. Even lightly loaded, the drive made some unpleasant crunching sounds as the PLA springs gave out.

Clockmaker hack cheat tool generator#

The entire prototype is 3D-printed, except for the wave generator bearings and stepper motor, and put to the test.Īs the video below shows after the excellent introduction to harmonic drives, the concept works, but it’s not without its limitations. His idea is to couple the flex spline to the output of the drive through a flat spring, one that allows flexion as the wave generator rotates but transmits torque efficiently. ’s problem with the harmonic drive is that due to the depth of the flexible spline cup, compactness is not among its virtues. The two gears differ by only a couple of teeth, meaning that very high gear ratios can be achieved, which makes them great for the joints of robot legs. A wave generator rotates within the inside cup, stretching it so that it meshes with the outer ring. The idea is to have a rigid, internally-toothed outer ring nested around an externally-toothed, flexible cup. But rather than abandon the torque-amplifying transmission completely, he decided to see about improving them using 3D-printed compliant mechanisms.įor the uninitiated, harmonic drives, also known as strain-wave gears, are a compact, high-torque gearbox that has become popular with “robotic dog” makers and other roboticists. Has a secret: he doesn’t like harmonic drives.