action pig

I have made a few hand-cranked orreries before I started adding motors to my design, and they definitely had a more choppy motion. If you want the orrery to run in real time that fixes a lot of those problems, because even Mercury's orbit takes 88 days, and at that slow speed you just don't notice any intermittent motion (if there is any). As far as accuracy in cutting gears, I've seen no real difference between using lasercut gears and cutting my own. I think the scroll saw cut gears are actually better because you have a lot more control in making it run just right. But as far as smooth motion goes the absolute best thing you can do is depth your gears and space them correctly. When I eventually have more machining capability I want to build a depthing tool similar to this:http:/...

I have made a few hand-cranked orreries before I started adding motors to my design, and they definitely had a more choppy motion. If you want the orrery to run in real time that fixes a lot of those problems, because even Mercury's orbit takes 88 days, and at that slow speed you just don't notice any intermittent motion (if there is any). As far as accuracy in cutting gears, I've seen no real difference between using lasercut gears and cutting my own. I think the scroll saw cut gears are actually better because you have a lot more control in making it run just right. But as far as smooth motion goes the absolute best thing you can do is depth your gears and space them correctly. When I eventually have more machining capability I want to build a depthing tool similar to this:http://www.donaldsonworkshop.com/chapdetail.php?pr...And if you are interested a more classic depthing tool looks more like this:http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/Gear_Depther.htmlIn any case don't be afraid to get started and make something imperfect! The only way to learn is to dig in - each clock I've built runs better than the last, and I know there is a lot more I can do to improve on my designs.

Thanks! I like the woodgears.ca website, but I have a mac and can't use the program. Someday I'd like to build his pantorouter machine. That is a great tip about the motors, I'm fixing up one of my clocks right now and will give it a try!Thanks for the kind words everybody.

Plywood works just as well if not better. Wooden gears were glued in pie sections to keep the grain oriented in a way that allows for maximum strength. A gear cut out of hardwood without using the pie method would be very weak in the cross-grain direction. Because plywood is made of alternating layers it does not have a weak cross grain direction and does not need to be glued into pie sections.