And finally, some of the designs that I tried just weren't as good as they might be. I've gotten better at this over time, and in the case of clocks I have a better understanding of them as physical systems than I did at first I mean things like how power is transmitted through the system and how it interacts with the elements that control the timing.
#3d clock plans how to#
I know how to think about solving software problems, but I don't have a good feel for where to start with mechanical ones. Another source of problems is my inexperience with debugging clocks, and mechanisms in general. My first two printers really weren't up to the level of precision that is needed. Some of this is attributable to the quality of the prints. WholePicFreeCAD.png (315.23 KiB) Viewed 2864 times 3DprintedClock.jpg (367.07 KiB) Viewed 2864 times frontopleft.png (127.7 KiB) Viewed 2864 times back.png (150.I have made several attempts at making clocks using a 3D printer, always ending in a clock that didn't run at all or that would only run for a short time. This video on cycloid gear explains what I did, how and why There is one feature request that I have: It is to add a head parameter to the cycloid gear, same as it exist in the involute gear, tried to implement locally, could not get it to work, then hardcoded a short cut using clearance to adjust the length of tooth There are two issues that I can reproduce that I will talk in a separate post, one is trimming circles and tangents that cause an error, another is padding two concentric ellipse caused FreeCAD to freeze The net result: FreeCAD is perfect for my needs, It did all I wanted to do…Awsome!Īlong the way I learned a few things about topological naming issues and learned why attaching sketch to a face is not a good idea.
The assembly might not look perfect, gear could turn around to mesh properly, there is no animation, but it fits my need, that is to generate stl files that I could print and then assemble and not have to reprint every parts 5 or 10 times until all fits. I already had printed and built a prototype and things where a little tight, I had to increase some dimensions in the Z axis, new side frames, thicker gears
Now I could check the sideview and check and adjust clearances in the Z axis. I made a separate assembly for the front frame I then built an new assembly on the back frame, adding gears and extra frames as I went onĪt this time I made all the parts in separate documents in part design, then copied the « body » and pasted in the Part folder of the assembly, placed LCS and imported in the model Once I had a sketch with all major dimension I saved that sketch and duplicated it as a staring point for the all the frames Once I had the layout of the gears, I could start with the back frame. I also wanted to limit the size of the frame to 200/200 mm so it could fit easily on my printer Now I can start with the design with a master sketch to organize the gears, that is for front view, X-Y plan in FreeCAD
#3d clock plans code#
I had to hack into the code to get what I wanted and get something that worked (feature request will follow) I started with the Assembly 4 to animate two cycloid gears and optimize the meshing I used the Part Design workbench, the Gear workbench, the Assembly 4 workbench and the fastener Workbench My first idea was to redo clocks that I already made in Fusion, but then moved on a totally new project, one that can run over 24 hours I have used Fusion 360 for a couple years and while I am not a clock maker, I already have some experience designing 3D printed clocks. The cycloid gear is what made me want to experiment more with freeCAD. I also want to share the link to the whole file with the following creative commons license: BY-NC-SAįinally here is a link to the latest video of the progress of the clock on my YouTube Chanel:Ĭhecking out FreeCAD, I found the gear workbench with all its options. Here is a picture of the 3D printed realisation: Here is a rendering of the assembly in freeCAD: Here is my mechanical clock that I have designed with FreeCAD 0.19īut first, I would like to thank all the developers for this awesome program, as well as the workbenches.
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