pic: Planetary...Wheel?

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

In generally 3 things worry me.

Others have said it already but imho, you need to get independent bearings on the wheel/sun. Gears are not intended to be bearings. You have little chance of success if you depend on the gears for support.

The thinness of the wheel. I think you will want to consider thickening up the wheel. Wheels take considerable side loads, more than I would expect a 10" dia, 1/4th thick spoke splate to be able to support.

Finally, gear tooth face width. <snip, sorry its just long...>
Just some things to think about.

Joe J.

I appreciate your comments, as well as everyone else's, this design was a mere idea I came up with one day, I didn't think it anywhere near fully through and I'm not sure if it will ever be feasible. That being said, I'm currently sketching ideas to get independent needlepoint bearing support for the wheel, hopefully I can find a solution to the side load and gear load problems.

Also, The wheel thickness in this diagram is fairly thin I admit, but as stated before this is more of a conceptual model than anything to build from, same goes with the thin gears, I'm sure I could find better ones up to the job, and I will when I finish "rev 2" the "Production model" over this summer. I'm fairly busy, just starting work and handling my last summer in high school and all, so it may take some time to finish. Also, I've devoted some of my low amounts of CAD time to version 3.0 of my Omniwheel, which I'm posting right after this, based on suggestions offered in that thread to improve the design, it was a little easier and less demanding, so I figured I might as well get it out of the way. I appreciate everyone's help with this and I hope a final, workable design can be realized, and that it may be of help to a team at some point.

And now back to the wizard of Cogs...