The Amazing Gyroscopic Cube Gears!

thingiverse

Update - I have re-printed and assembled this and in the process made several changes to make this much easier to print and assemble. With the changes that I made, I only had a couple spots where I had very minor edge cleanup because of the first layer being squeezed for adhesion. I have removed the need for sanding and other finish work that was previously needed. (I do however still recommend lubrication). I also wrote a full set of assembly instructions with pictures detailing my process for assembly. I hope that this helps those who build this and I thank those who made it through the assembly with my previous version. End of Update-- Come one come all and witness the thrills of the Amazing Gyroscopic Cube Gears! With a simple turn of the crank watch as the rings of the gyroscope rotate, the gears turn and the gear cube comes alive. It's simply Mesmerizing! The yellow parts on mine are printed in glow in the dark plastic which makes it even more amazing in the dark (but unfortunately does not show up with my camera). Ok, that's all I got. I was looking at the gyroscopic gimbal mount for emmett's cube gears and thought it would be really cool if it could move on its own and have the cube gears turn as well. And so I went on a mission to design, test, alter, redesign, test alter, etc, etc until I had created the Amazing Gyroscopic Cube Gears! This is the had cranked version so you have no excuse to put off making it. I used the excellent hand crank from the tiny planetary gears set. No need to wait for a motor to ship. You can build it now! I have started working on making the modifications to motorize it and it will be an easy conversion if you want to change it later. I have a couple of other projects that I am wrapping up before I finish the motorized version, but it will be coming soon. Here's a video of it in action:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp33YNBuPMM And a teaser of it being driven by a $5 gear motor:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI-SuvXPZQg I made the custom parts for this using tinkercad. I have made them public so that you can copy them and customize them to your liking. just search for "gyro cube gears". Here's a link to my public Tinkercad items, including these parts:https://tinkercad.com/users/2kCdTWHQpcv-joe-ethington Instructions Each of the pieces to this need to be able to turn VERY freely. I recommend using CRC Heavy Duty Silicone spray to lubricate all moving parts. If you want to customize the cube, you can use Emmett's "œthree cube gears" customizer to add words to the three large gears. Just choose the 5-6 version. You can find it here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:213946 I have detailed the assembly instructions with pictures in the pdf file that can be found in the downloads.