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Fusion360 Add-in for Perfect Print Gears

Hey, everyone. I spent a 2 days with Claude Code and created a Fusion360 Add-in for the Perfect Print Gears. I want to start the journey to design my own clock, and kinda felt this was a pre-requisite for me, after reading Steve's guide

GitHub - LordRaptor/Fusion360PerfectPrintGears: Steve Peterson's Perfect Print Gear Generator for Fusion360

It's not perfect, but it has all the main features I wanted, mainly being able to select the target components for the wheel and pinion separately and being able to select the sketch pane and wheel center. The resulting sketch and geometry are fully done via sketch constraints, which was something I really wanted. The wheel is fully constrained, the pinion retains one degree of freedom so you can rotate it arround the wheel to any position you want (but the center to center distance is constrained via a tangency constraint between the pitch circles).

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DarthRaptor

2 days ago

Thanks for all those tips. Yes the gears posted were completely un-optimized, and not sized for printing. I still need to experiment, but I am really happy with the initial results. But I still need to figure out some good default settings. Spokes and stuff like this are out of scope for now, but the coding is not that impressive, it's just AI that has become very impressive

I did actually print something already with this, a hour/minute train and even with zero optimization it worked great. I am not sure I fully understand the oval tip, could you post a picture?

13 days ago

Files included in purchase.

Hi all.

I would like to know if step files are available as I see only stl files in the purchased package for the moon clock?

I may wish to tinker around with my cnc router to do a wood version of the clock and would thus need step files to work with in Fusion. Also, I have some hardware of different sizes from another clock project I did and wish to make adjustments to the components in fusion to use these.

Thanks and looking forward to giving this a try.

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Steve

Jun 18

Thanks for asking. A few step files are included in some of the designs for 3D printed customizations.

All of my designs are completely optimized for 3D printing. They include narrow spokea and rims with sharp fillets that work great when 3D printed. Every gear should be re-optimized for a CNC router. The frame also needs to be completely re-designed so it can be made from flat stock. The overall size may need to be increased so the gear teeth have the appropriate strength.

I have looked at converting a few designs. Every attempt becomes a complete re-design instead of a conversion. In my experience, the only parts that can be re-used are the gear ratios and the relative positioning of gears within the frame.

My plans include eventually designing some wooden gear clocks. So far, none have been completed. My recommendation would be to start with a clock design that is already optimized for CNC routing. Clayton Boyer, Brian Law, and WoodenTimes have plenty of designs to select, although I don't know if there are any with a moon phase.

Steve

pataran

22 days ago

Congreve Rolling Ball Clock

This clock uses a steel ball which takes 30 seconds to complete its travel through a race at which time it triggers a release allowing the table to flip the other way. In a years time the ball travels 2500 miles. From 1820.

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Steve

Jun 09

It is a fascinating clock, but a horrible timekeeper. A tiny bit of dust changes the rate significantly.

I built a prototype tray for a similar clock years ago. It used a steel ball with contact wires to detect reaching the end of the track. An RC servo was used to tilt the table back and forth. A micro controller would control the RC servo and adjust the track tilt to keep the time accurate. The tilting track would ratchet the time forward. I realized that the clock could keep time by simply tilting the table every 15 seconds and the rolling ball becomes optional.