Author Topic: Flywheel builder (software)  (Read 16125 times)

Offline Stuart

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #15 on: June 25, 2015, 11:38:38 AM »
Todd

works ok here

it will download to downloads folder one from there and its fine , no security messages on screen or console

but no go on iPad it will not dl the file

now for the surprise you  are ahead of the times because I am registered as a dev with apple and i am using OS X El Capitan   10.11 beta 2 using Safari ver 9
 I cannot say much more because of NDA

but please do not ask for help with the iPad as I only do OSX stuff and I am snowed under with my own work using Swift , Apples new language

Stuart
My aim is for a accurate part with a good finish

Offline chucketn

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #16 on: June 25, 2015, 12:36:35 PM »
Todd, I found a minor flaw in your flywheel builder. If I change the specs to 6 spokes, the inner holes for the cutouts are shown double. I even tried editing the source to make 6 spokes the default and it still shows double over lapping holes. If I select 5 spokes in the modified version, the result displays correctly. I know enough about html to be dangerous and do not know how to fix it.

Thanks for sharing your program.

Chuck

Offline kvom

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #17 on: June 25, 2015, 12:47:07 PM »
DXF format is conceptually simple, a series of lines of text most of which would be the same for every wheel.  That said, your tool is very useful for visualization of a wheel;  once done it's easy to  manually transfer the coords to CAD for DXF generation.

Machining S-shaped spokes manually would be quite a chore.

Offline tinglett

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #18 on: June 25, 2015, 02:49:55 PM »
Stuart,

Thanks for the info.  I suspect some problems might be due to downloading the html and "running" it direct.  This could open a file browser of some sort that only partially handles html.  It also may kick in some security limitations.  Not sure what would be wrong with canvas, but you never know.  I need to get this up on a real website to rule these out.

Chuck,

That's actually working as designed -- but I won't claim it was designed right :).  The first detail is that I decided to go with 4 holes for each web cutout rather than 3 (I recall Marv's FLYWHEEL assumed 3).  So you really can have 2 inner holes and 2 outer holes.    You can play with the "Inner hole angle" and "Outer hole angle" to see what they do.  Note in the text below it says "Use an inner hole angle of XX.X degrees to have a 3-hole cutout."  I added this text so you don't have to think about what value to use for the inner angle if you want only 3 holes.

That's part of the story.  The other part is deciding when to reset all the numbers.   If you reload the webpage it will reset for sure, and in fact it will reset to 5 spokes as this is what I coded as the default.  If you flip the number of spokes, I don't change any of the numbers below.  And it turns out the numbers for 6-spoke aren't really valid -- they need tweaking as you point out.  For 6-spoke try 30 degrees for the inner hole angle and you'll get 3 hole cutouts, and try 25 degrees and you'll see how 4 hole cutouts come into play.

I think this leaves me with three problems.  First is that it is already getting rather complex.  The more "knobs" I have, the more difficult it will be to understand what's going on.  Certainly I should write some instructions, and these could be right on the same page.  Perhaps that should be a priority that I get done now.  Second is that I'm not sure what I should do when you flip the number of spokes.  Should I reset all the numbers?  That would be bad if you spent a bunch of time tweaking numbers you meant to keep, but I'm not sure how you'd "accidentally" change the number of spokes.  And third is what I should do when the numbers don't produce a valid flywheel.  I should highlight problem numbers at the very least, but all these numbers are interrelated so picking which is "at fault" may be non-trivial.

Todd

Offline mklotz

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #19 on: June 25, 2015, 03:05:39 PM »
Todd,

A long time ago, Cedge (screen name), wrote an extremely useful article on making curved-spoke flywheels...

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=2811

Unfortunately, as his addendum indicates, all pictures have been removed as a protest to the copyright policies of the new owners of HMEM.  However, I'm sure that if you contacted Steve (assuming he's still around) and explained what you are attempting to do, he would send you the pictures.

Also, in that thread you'll find a post by me wherein I point out...

If you have back issues of PIM ("Projects in Metal" - the forerunner of "Machinist's Workshop"), the Duclos article on constructing curved spoke flywheels (the article from which the book entry Steve refers to was taken) is on page 4 in the April 1988 issue.
Regards, Marv
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Offline tinglett

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #20 on: June 25, 2015, 03:57:08 PM »
Marv,

Thanks for the pointer!   With a little searching, I also found a post from Cedge that highly recommends "The Shop wisdom of Philip Duclos" as a reference.  With a little more searching I see some high recommendations for this book even on this forum so I may have to put in my order asap and give it a read.

Todd

Offline Maryak

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #21 on: June 27, 2015, 12:14:44 AM »
Todd,

A long time ago, Cedge (screen name), wrote an extremely useful article on making curved-spoke flywheels...

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=2811

Unfortunately, as his addendum indicates, all pictures have been removed as a protest to the copyright policies of the new owners of HMEM.  However, I'm sure that if you contacted Steve (assuming he's still around) and explained what you are attempting to do, he would send you the pictures.

Also, in that thread you'll find a post by me wherein I point out...

If you have back issues of PIM ("Projects in Metal" - the forerunner of "Machinist's Workshop"), the Duclos article on constructing curved spoke flywheels (the article from which the book entry Steve refers to was taken) is on page 4 in the April 1988 issue.

Hi Marv,

 IIRC, Cedge, (Steve ???????) had his own website but for the life of me I cannot remember the IP. Again from memory he did a lot of wonderful restoration of models but writing this in the hope that it jogs memories.

Just jogged mine...........he is a member here................ so if members wish to contact him please look up his details in the membership list..........User Name Cedge.

Best Regards
Bob
Если вы у Тетушки были яйца, она была бы Дядюшкой

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #22 on: June 27, 2015, 12:20:52 AM »
Bob, I hadn't realized that Cedge was a member here either. Guess I should look over the member list more often!  It appears he hasn't been very active though...last log in to the forum back in February, but perhaps he can be persuaded to join in more often. He always had some good posts over on the other site. Thanks for the memory jog :)

Bill

Offline Don1966

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #23 on: June 27, 2015, 02:58:42 AM »
Steve's workshop is here.....http://www.cedesign.net/steam/


Don

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #24 on: June 27, 2015, 03:28:16 AM »
Hello again Todd, I have Android version 5.0.02 running HTC sense V6.0 PRI version 4.79.002 PRL version 15379ERI version 5.0   Hopefully this info will assist you in some way. This is the latest[size=78%] and greatest (that I know of) offered to HTC users……. I just updated about a month ago and so far there have been no updates available…[/size]


BC1
Jim

Offline Andy

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #25 on: June 27, 2015, 04:43:06 PM »
Marv,

Thanks for the pointer!   With a little searching, I also found a post from Cedge that highly recommends "The Shop wisdom of Philip Duclos" as a reference.  With a little more searching I see some high recommendations for this book even on this forum so I may have to put in my order asap and give it a read.

Todd
I believe that you can still obtain that book from Scribd. Look for trefall123. I also managed to find those ever so elusive Bedside Reader books on there. I added this comment as I think it is an approved way of distributing ebooks? If it is against copyright, then I apologise.

Offline tinglett

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #26 on: June 27, 2015, 05:42:17 PM »
Jim,

I wonder if it's launching in chrome on your HTC phone.  If you look at the page and get the error, can you pop up the recent apps list (the little square button) and see if it's really chrome?  I wonder because some kind of file browser that can show html might be limited and not be able to show the canvas stuff.

I'll find a place to host the file on a real website so you can try with an http URL.  I think that's the next step.  I'll finally sit down and write some instructions too.  This will make it easier for me to post updates, too.

Todd

Offline tinglett

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #27 on: June 27, 2015, 10:29:37 PM »
I decided I needed to archive this in case I screw it up later on, so I checked it into github.  Fortunately there is a way to view the file directly so you can now try it via this (ugly) URL:

https://rawgit.com/tinglett/MachyTools/master/FlywheelBuilder.html

It's the exact same file as I attached in the first post of this thread.  See if that makes a difference how your phone interprets it.  It works fine on my Nexus 5, although I'm kind of wishing it would scale the drawing to the full width of the phone.  Not sure you'd want that on a PC/laptop, though (mighty big!).

Todd

Offline tinglett

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #28 on: June 28, 2015, 08:04:36 PM »
Curved Spokes

I put a little thought into how I might approach curved spokes.  This won't let you do any possible layout, but I think it's a good start in my thinking as to what I need to do.  I haven't thought about all the math yet, but I'll get there later.  When doing the original flywheel program it hit me that if I can do the math and draw it, it should also work on the mill.  Well, that's provided that I did the math and didn't leave it to the drawing library in the browser :).

First some background.  Here's roughly how the code deals with straight spokes.  I'm not proficient in any CAD these days, other than sketchup which drives me nuts for this sort of thing.  So I tried LibreCAD with mixed results.  Hopefully the figure makes sense.



The figure on the left shows an excerpt of the drawing for a straight non-tapered spoke, and the one on the right shows a straight tapered spoke.  Hole sizes could be different from inner to outer holes, but the problem's the same.  The software needs to calculate line AB and line A'B'.  These are relative to the spoke axis so all you need to do is repeat the setup N times through rotation when cutting out the webs for N spokes.  Note that I didn't try to draw the full web cutout so hopefully you didn't lose your orientation.

I drew in some dotted lines to the hub of the flywheel.  I don't need to calculate the lines all the way from A to C, but that would be straightforward.  In fact, the diameter from C to C' should be proportional to B-B' and A-A' based on the distance down the spoke because we have straight lines here.  The "proportion" is really the slope of the line.

Now lets imagine we are going to hold the rim of the flywheel steady and give the hub and inner holes a "twist" counter-clockwise 30 degrees.  You'd get the following diagrams.


What I have are 3-point arcs, and if you use CAD software you've probably drawn arcs that way.  If I can calculate the diameter of the circle around the hub using the same proportion as when I have a straight spoke, I could use that as a starting point for the 3-point arc.  All the points are tangent to the circles and I think are a points rotated 30 degrees, but I haven't looked that close.  The figure is hand-drawn in LibreCAD to show me what I need to try to do.  Oh, and note that I didn't make the uncut part of the arc dotted.  Sorry about that, but I didn't want to take the time to figure out how to do that in this CAD software.  The cut would end at the inner holes, of course, just like with the straight spokes.

Does that look like it might work?   On the mill you'd have to mount the flywheel off center of the RT so rotating the RT will sweep out these arcs.  This probably means some kind of mounting plate needs to be made with pins to locate the flywheel so that the flywheel can be accurately turned for each spoke.  That's a manual operation to unclamp and rotate it and reclamp it.  Fortunately the inner/outer holes would make perfect holes for such alignment pins.  That isn't sounding too nasty to me provided the radii of these arcs isn't too big relative to the size of the RT.  Also, I think there will be two setups -- one for the "left" web and one for the "right."  But that's not surprising, because you get two setups for tapered straight spokes, too.  They are simply mirror images of each other.  Here I'll need to print out all the settings for the two setups.

Now I need to go look at a couple prints for projects with curved flywheel spokes, as well as the Duclos book.  I bet the setup is similar as I just described.  If not, I'll learn something :).  Either way is good!

Todd
« Last Edit: June 28, 2015, 08:07:54 PM by tinglett »

Offline tinglett

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Re: Flywheel builder (software)
« Reply #29 on: June 29, 2015, 05:49:37 PM »
With a little searching I found that creation of these arcs is called the Apollonius' Problem.  Oh sure, it would be complicated enough that it has a name! :)  There are three circles and I want an arc that is fit to be tangent (touching at right angles to each circle's radius) to all three.  In the general problem an arc could be drawn to touch on either side of each of the three circles making for 8 combinations.  It turns out this is a +- difference for each, so that leaves the fun problem of selecting which of the 8 solutions is correct.   I don't grok this fully yet, but you can read about it here if you are into such things:  http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ApolloniusProblem.html

Todd

 

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