Gear Factory for Spiro Machine

myminifactory

Hi! This is a customizer for gears and plates used in my Spiro Machine recently published at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2039878. I've used the Parametric Involute Bevel and Spur Gears by GregFrost (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3575) code for this one. Why a customizer? The number of teeth on gears and plates in a spirograph determines the number of loops, also known as points, of drawn shapes. In the Spiro Machine files I've included a bunch of gears and plates, but you may want to try others configurations. This customizer creates gears and plates with any number of teeth. The Excel File There's a relationship between plate and gear teeth so I also included an Excel file as a calculator for your custom gears. How it works? When you create a gear/plate set, the number of teeth on the plate determines the variations of shapes depending on the gear teeth. With this file, you can find a plate's teeth number with many variations and discard the plates that are boring or weird. Once you have some interesting plates, look for gears that can draw nice shapes. In the file uploaded, I've highlighted the plates and gears I used for the Spiro Machine published. Mmmm....I don't know if I explained well. English isn't my native language, and I have big grammar lacks. Use comments to ask questions or make suggestions related to this. Hope you find it useful! Explore your own variations, and good luck! Have fun!