ANSWERS : Technology

I'm trying to design a complicated wind-powered whirligig that has a lot of gears and levers in it; I would love to design it on a program that would allow me to test out variations before I get to actually building it. Has anyone seen a program that can do that?

Much appreciated,

Damian

Comments

[rickharris]

http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html

is a gear drawing template - I recommend browsing Matthias Wandel's site anyway at  http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/  if your building automata.

Levers shouldn't be a problem in any of the 2D drawing systems around ( search fro Free CAD) or any drawing system that will allow measurements and print at 100 %

[Mahmoud Alaa]

http://www.ptc.com/products/creo-elements-direct/modeling-express/

[Foam-Smith]

could try the web site ( http://download.cnet.com/mac/ ) its a good web site for a lot of PC/MAC programs all for free. Its viruse free. dont worrie. ive used it all the time and have had no problems with my computer

[jamngary]

Autodesk Inventor is good, but I use cad myself. There are many paid versions of CAD, but there is a free one that does the same stuff:

http://www.ptc.com/products/creo-elements-direct/modeling-express/

You should really try it!

[jeffrey4283]

Autodesk Inventor has a suite of tools within it just for gear design and is available in a student version from them with I think a 2 or 3 year license not to mention all the other tools in the software.

[blkhawk]

Try DraftSight

[Thermionic]

I'd love to find one myself.

[Pfarmkid]

Ditto

[Computothought]

Autocad has some nice 3d add-on's. http://usa.autodesk.com/products/free-product-trials.  We do not use Microsoft Windows anymore so IIt is of no use to us.   Picked this one up from a web search engine: http://www.emachineshop.com/machine-shop/Free-Gear-Design-Software/page506.html
http://www.hobbing.com/
Qcad with add-on libraries.(http://www.qcad.org/camexpert.html)

[damianzuch]

This is great - thanks all! I've also been looking into a Sketch Up plugin called Sketchy Physics, I don't know how easy it is to use yet.

OK, I'll dig around your recommendations,

Thanks,

Damian

(youtube example of sketchy physics): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLvXvzPvfWI

[steveastrouk]

Try something like "Algodoo", the program formerly known as "Phun". I think you can draw things near enough to scale to get away with it.

Steve

[FoolishSage]

I have seen people using Solidworks to design mechanical systems. 3D modelling software with all kinds of mechanical settings (rotation axis, impact boxes, etc). I haven't used it myself so i don't know how well it it will suit your specific purpose but i think it is worth a try.

[patriots8888]

Blender is always good, but I don't know if it can test variations