Hi everyone.
I've recently updated my banner image
on my social media sites
to a picture that shows a series of
Lego Technic gears inter-meshed with each other.
I created this image in MLCad and LDView,
and used Paint.NET to do some minor
image manipulation and composition.
And then someone asked if
the gears actually work in real life.
When creating the layout of the gears
I tried to make sure that
the gears did mesh with each other,
and I used Sariel's Lego Gear Ratio Calculator
to help me get the gear spacing just right.
However, this image was designed on a computer,
and in theory I knew that it should work in real life,
but I wasn't 100% sure.
To prove that this model does work,
I decided to build this model
with real Lego gears and pieces.
I've added a crank to the
left-hand-side that is geared down,
and on the right-hand-side
I've added my channel logo.
The gear-train goes all the way around
in this general direction,
and when I rotate the crank
you can see all of the gears also rotate.
There were a few things that I learnt
while building this model in real life.
First of all, some of the spacing that I used
between gears was either a little bit too far apart,
or a little bit too close.
Secondly, I learnt that most of
the gears are acting as idler gears.
This means that all the gears that are the same size
are actually rotating at the same speed,
and some are travelling clockwise while others
are travelling anti-clockwise or counter-clockwise.
Lastly, a lot of friction is introduced when
using this many gears and axles in a row.
I fixed this by making the frame more rigid,
and I used longer axles for the gears so that they
are supported better and don't twist as much.
On the back of this model you can see
that I added some extra gears and axles,
as well as some chains,
that link different sections together.
These help to distribute the power from the input
to various locations throughout the drive-train
to overcome some of the friction issues.
In case you are wondering,
there are 149 gears used on the front of the model,
with an additional 37 gears on the back,
203 liftarms that are 15 studs long,
268 blue pins that are three studs long
holding this model together,
as well as a few other pieces used throughout.
I hope that you like my new banner image,
and thank you for watching this video.
