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Gear Talk Gears are used in tons of mechanical devices. They do several important jobs, but most important, they provide a gear reduction in motorized equipment. This is key because, often, a small motor spinning very fast can provide enough power for a device, but not enough torque. For instance, an electric screwdriver has a very large gear reduction because it needs lots of torque to turn screws, but the motor only produces a small amount of torque at a high speed. With a gear reduction, the output speed can be reduced while the torque is increased. _________________________ Another thing gears do is adjust the direction of rotation. For instance, in the differential between the rear wheels of your car, the power is transmitted by a shaft that runs down the center of the car, and the differential has to turn that power 90 degrees to apply it to the wheels. _________________________ You see gears in just about everything that has spinning parts. Car engines and transmissions contain lots of gears. If you ever open up a VCR and look inside, you will see it is full of gears. Wind-up, grandfather and pendulum clocks contain plenty of gears, especially if they have bells or chimes. You probably have a power meter on the side of your house, and if it has a see-through cover you can see that it contains 10 or 15 gears. Gears are everywhere where there are engines and motors producing rotational motion _________________________ Most gears that you see in real life have teeth. The teeth have three advantages:
_________________________ Have you ever looked inside a grandfather clock or a small mechanical alarm clock, seen all the gears and springs and thought, "Wow -- that's complicated!"? While clocks normally are fairly complicated, they do not have to be confusing or mysterious. In fact, as you learn how a clock works, you can see how clock designers faced and solved a number of interesting problems to create accurate timekeeping devices. In our different cogboxes you get to experiment with gears and levers, in the Advanced Cogbox you get to build and experiment with a wooden works clock.
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Set Accessories & Parts
Set10-4i - Internal Gear/Pulley Mounting System
The Set10-4i accessory allows standard Set10 gears and pulleys to be mounted internally between the two triangular matrix boards. Comes complete with 4 shafts and mounting hardware to mount 8 gears or pulleys . The shafts are ground stainless steel with a polished pivot mounted in each end. The pivots are removable and replaceable. Each shaft is mounted be screwing a brass threaded bushing through a matrix board tapped hole until it captures the shaft pivot. This method of mounting produces extremely low friction and is excellent for rotational inertia experiments, complex machines and clocks. The Set10-4i accessory kit is required for building and experiments with the Set10 clock.
