How to Draw Clock Gears

in Visio

By

Mike MacLeod

Copyright © Mike MacLeod 2017.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be
distributed or sold. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in
any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

Printed and published by Mike MacLeod,

Benoni.
South Africa.
cammhifi@gmail.com
http://novelbooks.weebly.com
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 How to Draw Clock Gears in Visio
Using Cycloidal Gear Calculator.
By Mike MacLeod.
Programs required:
Cycloidal Gear Calculator - free:
http://code.google.com/p/drh-
horology/downloads/list

.Net Framework 3.5 - free:

http://www.microsoft.com/dow
nload/en/details.aspx?id=21

Inkscape:
https://inkscape.org
/en/gallery/item/39
44/Inkscape-0.91-
1.exe

Visio3.0, Visio - 2007

Step 1. Open Cycloidal Gear Calculator and set the parameters, making sure that
you have a dimension in the 'Centre hole diameter' box, then click on
‘Generate and save svg’. The file will be saved to Cycloidal Gear Calculator
installation folder with the name of CycloidalGear.svg – it always saves to this
name, so each time you generate a new file, it gets overwritten.

Step2. Open CycloidalGear.svg by double clicking on it and Inkscape will open –

if you have already installed it, that is.

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 Now select ‘File/Save as’ and from the drop down menu choose ‘Compressed
plain SVG’ option. Select a folder to save the file to and click ‘Save’. Exit the
program.

Step3. Navigate to where you have saved this new SVG file and right click and
select ‘Open with’ Visio.
Once it is open, select ‘File/Page setup’ and set the ‘Printer paper’ to
match your printer size e.g. A4: 210x297mm.
Select the Page Properties’ tab and select your preferred units e.g. mm.
Close screen by clicking ‘OK’.

If you're new to Visio, first read Tips and Tricks lower down.

Highlight the gear and select ‘Ungroup’ and delete the blue outer circles.
Highlight the gear again and select 'Fill' and choose a colour.
Now highlight both the gear and the small centre circle and press
'Fragment'.
The centre hole should be highlighted, if not, select it and remove the 'Fill'
colour. Set the size to whatever you think the centre boss/hub diameter
should be or as called out in your drawing. I make mine 25mm – 1 inch.

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To add spokes to the gear, I draw a reference circle to just below the root of
the teeth, say the same distance away as the height of a tooth.

I then draw two rectangles, the same width as my planned spokes and I make
them slightly shorter than the diameter of the inner circle we just drew - their
corners should touch the circle. Rotate one 90 degrees and centre both on the
gear. You should now have a cross in the centre of the gear.
Make sure that the inner circle that represents the boss or hub is large enough
to see, if not make it slightly bigger.
Using the 'Arc Tool', draw a triangle in one of the quadrants formed by the
cross, following around the hub circle on the inner corner and the reference
circle on the outer side. Use the guides to push or pull your triangle into shape,
then select 'Corner rounding' and select a radius, say 5mm. Your triangle will now
have nice rounded corners.
Copy and paste this triangle into the other three corners and when they're all
aligned, delete the cross rectangles.

Now highlight the gear (do not highlight the circles) as well as the four
triangles and select 'Fragment'..
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Delete the four triangles and the centre circle and you should be left with your
gear, complete with spokes.
Select the gear and 'Send it to the Back'. Delete any unwanted circles and
alignment marks, then select 'Save as' and save as a .dxf file. Give it a
different name so that you don't mix it up with the others that you created.

Views with circles and without circles.

You'll have to optimize the gcode for the one on the left because the circles
represent the different thicknesses, the one on the right is one thickness.

Tips and Tricks

Visio is quick and easy to use, and very accurate and while it is only a 2D
program, you can design and manufacture a variety of items. For me the best
thing to do, is optimize the menu tool bar with the commands you use the
most, see my sample below.

One of the best features of Visio is the Fragment, Union and Combine
commands, along with the Shift key, allowing us to make complex shapes.

In making the gear above, it required just the mouse and the Shift button and a
trick I learnt early on and that was to use alignment ticks or lines to aid in
getting things aligned perfectly. It also helps to have the Size & Position
window open. This allows you to see the measurements where you can modify
the numbers and angles. I also have a stencil open called 'Dimension -
Engineering, whereby you can add dimensions to your drawing, see below.

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When aligning objects, the first item selected, is the master and the next item
selected becomes the slave and will align to the master. In other words, all the
items selected, will align to the first item selected.
Here is where the alignment tools help on the tool bar, allowing you to align
top, bottom, centre or left and right and allows you to quickly draw a design.

For example I selected all the circles by

dragging the cursor around them using
the mouse and then selecting the
Vertical align tool, then the Horizontal
one, aligning all the items at once. You
can also nudge an item into place by
highlighting it and then using the up
down, left right arrow keys to move
them. By holding the shift key down
while doing this provides a finer degree
of movement. The shift key also allows
you to select multiple items by first
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 selecting an object and then
holding the shift key down and
then selecting more items, thus
keeping them all highlighted.
I also use tick marks, short lines, to
help in aligning things like squares
or rectangles. An example was the
copy and pasting of the triangles
for the spoke cut outs.

Here I have copied, pasted and

flipped the triangle horizontally
and then moved it to where I want
it to be. I have drawn two tick lines
– one at the top and one to the side
of the gear. I first selected the
horizontal rectangle of the cross,
then holding the shift button, have
selected the tick mark at the right
and then hit the 'Top Alignment'
tool. This aligns the tick mark
with the top of the rectangle. I
do the same to align the top tick
mark by first selecting the
vertical rectangle, holding Shift
and then selecting the top tick
mark and hitting the 'Align right'
tool.
Now it's just a matter of selecting
the right hand tick mark, holding
Shift, then selecting the triangle
and hitting the 'Align bottom'
tool. The triangle has now aligned
itself on top of the rectangle and

it's just a matter of doing the same with the

top tick line and using the 'Align left' tool.
To save time you can now select both
triangles, copy, paste and then flip vertically.
While they are still both highlighted, move
them into position. Now I align the right
hand tick mark with the bottom of the
horizontal rectangle and align both bottom
triangles with the 'Top align' tool. Instead of
now re-aligning the top tick mark, I simply
highlight the triangle above the one I want to
move and then align the bottom one with it,
by selecting the 'Left or Right align' tool depending
which one you're moving. QED.
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You can test the dxf file with a CAD program like CNC USB Motion Controller and
simulate the cutting of the gear. I have had many things made by using either laser
cutting or water jet cutting, like brackets, wood templates, wood animals for mosaic
designs, motor bike engine overhaul stands etc.

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Notes:

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