Geneva with Torsion Spring Mechanism

grabcad

A unique Geneva Wheel or Maltese Cross design features an input wheel (blue) with grooves and an output cross (yellow) sporting pins. The mechanism operates via a torsion spring-powered actuator (red), forcing output pins into the input grooves. An assembly on top of the output, containing a groove acting as a limit, houses the actuator, with its pin sliding inside that groove. Note this system functions in one direction only; view an animation to see it in action. I've employed a trick for making this mechanism work. The provided visuals are modeled using Solidworks 2015 and rendered via Simlab Composer 6 Mechanical Edition. Frames have been edited with Virtualdub, saved as AVI/X264 and BMP formats before being remuxed to MP4 using MyMP4BoxGui. Gifs were created with PhotoScape, while renders were further edited with IrfanView. Animated 3D-PDF, ZIM, and SIMLAB files are available for your perusal. You can view the ZIM file on both iOS and Android devices using the free Simlab Viewer app. The model is also accessible in a variety of formats, including Solidworks 2015, Simlab Composer 6, DAE, STEP, IGES, STL, Parasolid, OBJ, 3D-PDF, SketchUp, 3DS, and ZIM.