Human powered Planetary Gear Fan

thingiverse

Update: Thingiverse is still being flaky, so you may need to re-download the carrier.stl. I'm at it again with another human-powered fan! I don't know why I'm so obsessed with making these, but they just seem like a low-hanging fruit project. Here's my latest creation. The planetary gears are stackable, so if you want your fan to spin faster, print more gear-stacks and add them to the cluster. I found that three might be the realistic limit, as it takes some force to get it going and that's a pretty long crank handle for leverage. You'll need supports for the fan, carrier, adapter, and crank. Four 3/8ths bolts that are 4 inches long and four nuts will also come in handy. Don't over-tighten the bolt that holds the sun gears - you want them to spin freely. When assembling the planet gears to the carrier, they snap into place, but I found that compressing the tangs on the studs by pushing the gears at a slight angle and giving it a twist really helped get them in there. Just be sure all the planet gears face the right direction! Once the planet gears are on the carrier, you'll need to force the carrier and gears into the ring gear, but once they're in place, they should spin pretty freely - at least, that's what happened with my printer. Your printer's tolerances and horizontal expansion may vary, so you've been warned!