Thanks for this. Couple of comments: 1 - when building, you can quickly find the radius on the fly by the formula: (number of teeth) divided by 16. You can also find the distance between any two gear axes by adding the number of teeth for both gears (eg 16+8) and then divide by 16. 2 - i wonder what more spacings are possible when studded technic beams and plates are used. Using technic bricks with the holes between stud or bricks with holes aligned with studs, you can get half-unit spacing along the x axis.
Hi John. Fantastic point - I like it. By extension of that idea we can work out the gear B that meshes with another gear A over distance D by using B = D x 16 - A. So if D=2, and A =16 then B=16, but if A=8 then B=24. If D=2.25 and A=16 then B = 20! I am not a big fan of 0.5 spacings but sometimes that are necessary and do give you more options. e.g. D=1.5, A=8 gives B=16 making a 2:1 ratio.
This reply is a bit late, but it actually comes down to, simply, the engineering design of the gears themselves. Gears have both a radius and a tooth pitch (defined in whatever angular units you're using, although radians are preferred). They also have a tooth profile, but that's beside the point of this. Depending on which you hold constant--radius or tooth pitch--varying the other is what will determine how many teeth the gear has. In the case of LEGO gears, ALL LEGO gears feature an identical tooth profile and tooth pitch. (Except the 8-tooth gear, whose teeth are slightly necked, but that's to ensure proper mesh with the teeth of any gear the 8-tooth gear can fully mesh with. The tips of the 8-tooth teeth have the same profile as the other gears and that's what's important.) So with the tooth pitch held constant, varying the radius of the gear proportionally varies the number of teeth on the gear. Or in a different way, setting the number of teeth on the gear likewise sets the radius. LEGO has carefully selected a tooth pitch such that certain special radii have nice, neat, multiple-of-four tooth counts, and those special radii are what ultimately determine which gears mesh with which gears on a strictly orthogonal basis. It just so happens that a few unconventional (and technically disallowed by the "rules") diagonals on that orthogonal grid permit the improper meshing of gears that normally cannot mesh at all, ever, on the orthogonal basis. :)
Great video! Really clear explanation of how you figured it out, and why it works. I love that you used geometry instead of algebra. Just one addition: it’s pretty easy to get half-stud offsets in one axis, and not too hard to get a half-stud offset in both axes. So depending what you’re trying to do, that could make those spots, and therefore distances and combinations, available.
Good one. I like the cheat sheet and the "intermediate gear" part. The only thing I would like to add: Gears without a "spacer" at the hub will not glide too well when placed flush with a layer of lift arms. (Not sure what the technnical term for this spacer is. The 94925 has it, the 32269 doesn't.) E.g. bevel gears sit on that surface with their full side area and will kinda snag a bit. You can hear and feel it when turning them. So, it still would work, but I always try to add a bushing or generally keep them away from lift arm sides, when I would have to place multiple like that. Just to reduce the friction. It may add up otherwise.
This is super helpful. As a kid building I would just remember patterns that worked for the various gears I had. The radius chart is brilliant. Thanks!
Fantastic work. Love the way you constructed the lesson and the various tables. I want to try to make a gearing poster that FLL coaches can hang on the wall and this is an amazing resource. As a second portion of the poster, I'm hoping to do something similar for right angle meshes.
do you have any good tips for meshing a worm gear with a 20 tooth beveled gear? Thanks! And this video is super helpful for other gear fitting questions I've had!
Could you do a version of this for aligning liftarms with each other at angles? For example the well-known 4-5 triangle that allows a 6-long liftarm to snap onto the grid at an angle. I was wondering if there was a way to figure out larger combos.
Great video! An interesting fact is that from the ones you mentioned no diagonal meshing is mathematically exact other than the 5 distance using a (3, 4) diagonal. This is because the distances form a right angle triangle and therefore they must satisfy pythagoreans theorem. So for gear distance c and diagonal (a, b) you need to have a^2+b^2=c^2. Notice that a and b are integers, meaning that c^2 must be an integer to have the equation exact. But this is not the case if c is ending with *.25 or *.5 or *.75
Hi Levente. Yes you are right. I am a big math fan and knew that my meshing's weren't mathematically exact but neither is a piece of Lego! LOL. Even for a 3,4,5 triangle lego pieces are just a plastic approximation to the mathematical dimension. How about if we use a =0.75, b=1, then c=1.25 🙃
@@TechnicBrickPower Yes, you are right, there's a reason why those meshings work. I wonder if there's a mathematical model (say with some error parameter for this non-exactness) that can derive those cases... 🤔 0.75, 1, 1.25 is a valid right angle triangle but in the grid you've used, you can't put two holes 0.75 apart from each other. If we try more scalings of the (3, 4, 5) triangle there's (1.5, 2, 2.5) which fails for the same reason in the grid, but what you can do is take an axle and separate two 4210851 connectors with 1 whole and 1 half washer. The holes will be 1.5 apart!
Hi Levente, I guess you could search for points that are some epsilon away from exactness - kind of what I did by hand really. The search space is quite small. Yes too bad 0.75 isn't on the grid 😂
@@handsomejack4947 Hi Jack, It's because a 5L beam is actually only 4 long. You need to count the gaps between the holes for the 3,4,5 triangle. So you need to connect a 6 (diagonal) on to a 5 long and a 4 long. Or you can double that and connect an 11 (5x2+1) long to 9 (4x2+1) long and 7 (3x2+1) long.
Hi, may I know what kind of software did u use for the lego gear simulation in the beginning? I've tried using LDD to design & mesh several gears to simulate it. However the simulation doesn't work bcs of the latest version. Btw great video sir ✨️
i love this video and your channel. oh and just so you know there are a lot of better gear meshing if you use angled beams because the 8 and 36 tooth gears like to slip a lot so i put it on a angled beam and it works perfectly
Hi Adrian. Thanks for your nice comments - I haven't used angled beams much as grids are easier to work with - however could be good for an intermediate gear - will look into it. 🍺🍺
I would expect Lego to never release 32 tooth gear because you can already create all the same ratios using 16 tooth gear with 2:1 additional gearing. Basically the only reason for 32 tooth gear would be to get 2:1 gearing with integer spacing. However, 32 tooth gear being quite a big one, coming up with alternatives with roughly similar space requirements isn't that hard.
Hi Mikko. I hope they do create the 32 tooth one day - every extra gear or component gives you so many more options. I know what you mean with the 2:1, but the 32 would also allow you to span 4 spaces with two gears which you currently cannot do. 🙃
Hi Kabouter! Yes that's a valid point. And it's a handy one because I quite often use an intermediate gear for that purpose - should have mentioned it in the video. Thanks for your comment. ;)
Have you considered making an app, phone app and/or webapp, similar to what Sariel has done? Sariel's app is limited to just two gear pairs, and offers no in-depth numbers, just gear pairings. Having a similar tool that has intermediate gears would be helpful. The 56t and 60t gears on the turntable types 1/2 and 3 tops should be added to the charts, as well as the internal 24t gear, on the turntable type 1/2 bases, and internal 140t gear on the set of 11x11 curved racks. These might be more difficult to place within a gear train, but every chart/app feels incomplete without these additions. Also, I'd consider putting the spacing within your chart, such as (3,4) and (0,5) for the 40t-40t pairing. Quickly glancing at the chart, this would make pairings quicker. I'd be curious to see a chart for half stud spacing. I know this can't be done on liftarms, but it can be done by using axles/pins with connectors that have perpendicularly oriented connections. Technically these could have any spacing, but Lego doesn't make anything other than stud and half stud wide bushes. If I had access to a 3D printer, it'd be nice to prototype a 32t gear, as well as the missing 44t, 48t, and 52t gears, and making standard variants of the 56t and 60t gears. As well as quarter and three quarter bushings. And maybe try a variety of gear designs like inversing which gears are bevel and spur, or making more crown gears like the 24t crown gear.
Hi there thanks for your comment! I haven't had a chance to look at Sariel's gear calculator yet. If I was going to do one I was thinking one where you can upload an .ldr file of a technic model and it would calculate the gear ratios of all components relative to a driving axle(s) - maybe by colour coding it in the ldr as such. Would that be useful? It would probably include differentials etc. I am not sure quarter sizing would be that beneficial as I am not sure what it would allow you to do that you can't already - maybe you have something specific in mind? I have been wondering for a long time why a 32 tooth gear hasn't come out yet - it would really add a lot of options.
@@TechnicBrickPower When I suggested the app idea, I was referring to something similar to what Sariel already has with his gear coupler part of the app. Sariel's solution finds a gearset based on the offset between those gears. Your solution can find an offset between gears based on a specific gear ratio. Two entirely different methods of building, Sariel's essentially has the frame already built and needs gears, while yours essentially has the geartrain already decided and needs a frame built around it. Making an active calculator app that ingests an .lrd is going to have to understand how the gearsets mesh, which makes things very complicated very quickly, and that's not something that's as easily color coded. It's a good idea, but the program itself would have to know what to look for and how to look for it, which delves into the rabbit hole that is machine learning and AI. Personally, I think Sariel's passive calculator is the optimal solution, you choose two gears, it gives you the ratio, you input an entire train of gearsets, it gives you a final ratio, with the increase/decrease in speed and torque. Sariel's app also has some additional features, but I haven't really looked beyond the calculator and gear coupler. As for my idea of using a wider range of bushing widths along an axle with connectors that hold the gears, it's fairly simple, more possibilities for gearsets. Lets look at what already exists, the half bush. With this half bush, between two gears, you can now mesh two 12t gears linearly across the axel beam. Similarly, any n.5 gearset would work in this way. Now lets apply that to quarter and three-quarter bushes, you can then mesh any n.25 and n.75 gearsets along a linear beam. It'd allow for more flexibility, though this would never exist in liftarms. And beyond flexibility of what gears can be used in a straight line, it reduces the need for intermediate gears, and could lower part count in geartrains that need specific ratios within it. Even further, this could also reduce the volume a build takes up, as you're now taking up less space due to the lack of needing intermediate gears. With all of the gear ratios nicely adding up to n.0, n.25, n.5, and n.75, quarter bushings should exist to allow more of these gearsets to be used. A three-quarter bushing should exist as a complimentary piece, such as how we have half bushes and full bushes, a three-quarter bush would take the place of a quarter + half bush set, such as how a full bush takes the place of a half + half bush set. I also think a wider range of bush sizes could also be interesting in chain systems, whether that's a plain chain or a track chain. Again, wider flexibility to the system, only this time it has more to do with overall shape and tension of the chain, as pulley placement has more varied positioning. Lego should actually produce a 32t gear, there's no logical reasoning for why that one specific gear is missing from the set. I also wish Lego would give us thicker gears with a 45° helix, so that we can finally have stacked perpendicular meshing; instead of a bevel-bevel with a stack of gears behind one of the bevels, we could reduce the set from four gears down to two gears, in a much smaller footprint, in what's probably also a much stronger gearset. Sometimes I feel like Technic is on the back burner when it comes to part innovation, an entire theme can come out with an entire assortment of new parts, yet it takes literal years for Technic just to get a revised gear that has reinforcement, and even longer to even get a new tooth count on a gear; the amount of new parts Technic gets in comparison to any other theme is lackluster.
Hi Again. Ok I will have a look at Sariel's calculator and see if I can implement your ideas. I think I can create something to dissect and process an .ldr file to calculate the gear ratios of the gears in it. It would discard all pieces that are not axles or gears, or axle joins and go from there. Yeah ok I see what you mean with the .75 spacing. Might be an idea instead of using 0.25/0.75 bushes and axles (because in practice these can push apart with the force of the gears) to simply 3d print liftarms with holes with these types of spacings - that way you can ensure strong support for the gears. Mind you - if you are going to print 3d parts to create spacing to allow specific gears to mesh you may as well print 2 gears with a number of teeth that give you the gearing ratio you are after, e.g. 19 teeth and 37 if you want 19:37 for some reason... I totally agree with your sentiment about lego technic parts - not many new are released that often. I would love some smaller and more compact springs, more connectors, and also more electrical components - e.g. limit switches etc. what about you?
@@TechnicBrickPower In your idea of a program that can dissect and process an .ldr, how do you plan on detecting meshing gears? What about setups with multiple inputs on a singular output, or multiple outputs on a singular input? What about gearboxes that use catches and driving rings? This is where I think it'll get too complex, processing a .ldr to only have gears and relevant components is fairly simple, but the complex part is when the program needs to evaluate which gear is meshing with which other gears. If you find a way to accurately detect gear meshing, then your calculator idea would work, my only concern is finding a way to detect gear meshing. In my idea of .25 and .75 spacing, I only considered using axles and bushes because Lego doesn't make any liftarms with a spacing outside of 1 stud. I also don't think Lego would ever plan on producing liftarms with alternate spacing, just because it's such a rare occurrence to need that kind of spacing. But we do have half bushes and a half spacing adapter in the form of the engine crankshaft part #2853; but the problem with #2853 is that you need a pin hole gear, not an axle gear. Lego doesn't use .25 or .75 spacing for anything, but I think it would be more likely that .25 and .75 bushes would be an official part, rather than the likeliness of a liftarm with spacings outside of 1 stud. I have no problem with custom parts, but I believe custom parts should remain within what Lego would produce themselves, which would include gears without 4-fold rotational symmetry that modern Lego uses. Which is why I think liftarms should remain within the 1 stud spacing, as that's what Lego uses and refuses to implement alternate spacings. But Lego does have half bushes, and connectors that can adapt a liftarm/axle to .5 stud spacing, so .25 and .75 spacings via bushes and connectors remain a technical possibility, and thus I believe custom parts for adapting to .25 and .75 spacings would be okay. For an analogy to my argument of custom parts, think of the various supercars. It'd be easy to 3d print a custom shell, similar to what the RC hobby uses, to put on top of a Lego chassis, but that's not in the spirit of Lego. I believe all custom parts should be within the spirit of Lego, thus custom parts should remain realistic to what Lego already makes. The only major exception to this is when a relevant part doesn't already exist, such as Barman's CV joint design from 2009, which Lego later made an official part based on the same basic design. As for future parts, I think more electrical components would be cool, but anything outside of motors would probably fall into the Mindstorms and Education themes. Spike Prime comes with a force sensor, which could probably be used as a limit switch, though I'm not sure how much intercompatibility there is between the Mindstorms/Spike Prime ecosystem and the Powered Up ecosystem. Powered Up also has a color and distance sensor, which could be used as a non-physical limit switch. I think Lego will eventually expand upon the Powered Up line, and hopefully integrate Mindstorms/Spike Prime components into a singular ecosystem. As for Technic-specific parts, I just want a wider array of functional pieces. More gears, sizes, alternate typing for spur and double bevel, more half bevel varieties, crown gears, 45° helical gears, more driving ring gear varieties, have a driving ring variety with an axle hole instead of a pin hole, etc. Wider array of actuators, pneumatic and gear driven, in more sizes. Better steering and suspension components. More n.5 length axles, more telescopic parts like what the CV joint with the female axle hole provides, more axle-pin varieties, more varieties for frictionless pins, etc. Basically, I just want the Technic theme to finally be fleshed out to it's full potential in terms of available parts. I also wish Technic subtheming would make a comeback. Cyberslam, Slizer, Roboriders, and classic Bionicle, were all great themes. I think bringing back subtheming of Technic would bring more attention to the Technic theme. More attention would result in more popularity, and more popularity would result in more products, and those products would inevitably have newer pieces; just like what all the old subthemes did, especially Bionicle, though most of it's pieces were unique and were odd to use with standard Technic builds. Overall, I think Lego should take the risk of expanding Technic again, the original Bionicle run lasted almost a decade, which was clearly a worthwhile investment for Lego, so I think they should take that risk again. I was never too fond of Hero Factory, though, as I felt like it branched too far away into it's own action figure theme, as it was all ball-snaps, and finding any actual Technic in it was rare, and the following revival of Bionicle was the same way. I just think bringing back the idea of Technic subthemes would introduce a much wider variety of parts, again, like what the various old subthemes did. Speaking of the Spike Prime and Mindstorms sets, I wish we'd get more color variations in parts. More magentas, teals, medium azures, reds, blues, yellows, greens, etc. A wider color palette would always be nice. Though, this would only be properly implemented if Lego expanded Pick-A-Brick's selection. After Lego bought BrickLink, I had hopes that they'd make Pick-A-Brick into a first-party variation of BrickLink, have every piece available, and expand upon this to provide every color from the current Lego color palette. Unfortunately, I'm losing hope that this will ever happen, though it's a genius business idea to offer this.
Technic Brick Power aw man I don’t even have one of them :( but that’s ok, it probably means it’s a lot better than the first one. I guess i have to get started on making a bricklink order! Also, is there a bricklink store that you recommend for these rare parts? I can’t find a single store that has the parts I need. And how big is the new gearbox gonna be? I need one for my 4x4 car.
@@pantsinmyants2810 At the moment it is 16x5x7 studs. There are a lot of different stores selling this part - take your pick. www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=6573&name=Technic,%20Gear%20Differential,%2024-16%20Teeth&category=%5BTechnic,%20Gear%5D#T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0}
An absolutely superb explanation, as usual! I'd also like to recommend Sariel's Gear Calculator app (unfortunately only for Android, but the tools are available on his web page as well!). It contains both a gear mesher, switchable between liftarms and old studded beams (as the vertical separation between rows is bigger with those), a calculator for the gear ratio of a gearing sequence, and a calculator for making planetary gears! play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.sariel.brickgearratiocalculator
Hi Johan. Thanks for your detailed comment - glad you enjoyed the video. Yes a few people have pointed me towards Sariel's calculator - can't wait to have a look at it - just need to get an Android device! 😀
Check out my website for my great Lego Technic content technicbrickpower.com 🙃
It blows my mind how many different ways lego pieces were meant to be compatible with each other. The Designers really did a great job!
Hi Michael. Totally agree - I often wonder how they do it!
Here I am three years later to let you know this is EXACTLY what I needed. Thank you for this comprehensive and easy to understand video. 🙂
Thanks for this. Couple of comments:
1 - when building, you can quickly find the radius on the fly by the formula: (number of teeth) divided by 16. You can also find the distance between any two gear axes by adding the number of teeth for both gears (eg 16+8) and then divide by 16.
2 - i wonder what more spacings are possible when studded technic beams and plates are used. Using technic bricks with the holes between stud or bricks with holes aligned with studs, you can get half-unit spacing along the x axis.
Hi John. Fantastic point - I like it. By extension of that idea we can work out the gear B that meshes with another gear A over distance D by using B = D x 16 - A. So if D=2, and A =16 then B=16, but if A=8 then B=24. If D=2.25 and A=16 then B = 20!
I am not a big fan of 0.5 spacings but sometimes that are necessary and do give you more options. e.g. D=1.5, A=8 gives B=16 making a 2:1 ratio.
@@TechnicBrickPower you might also want to check out LDU (Ldraw Units) -- google 'Brickgun LEGO Dimension Guides'
That was brilliant! Always wondered why Lego made some gears to mesh while others didn't! Look forward to watching more of your videos!!
Thanks Peter! I didn't realize the meshing options until I looked into in detail. I refer to my own chart often! 🙃
This reply is a bit late, but it actually comes down to, simply, the engineering design of the gears themselves. Gears have both a radius and a tooth pitch (defined in whatever angular units you're using, although radians are preferred). They also have a tooth profile, but that's beside the point of this. Depending on which you hold constant--radius or tooth pitch--varying the other is what will determine how many teeth the gear has.
In the case of LEGO gears, ALL LEGO gears feature an identical tooth profile and tooth pitch. (Except the 8-tooth gear, whose teeth are slightly necked, but that's to ensure proper mesh with the teeth of any gear the 8-tooth gear can fully mesh with. The tips of the 8-tooth teeth have the same profile as the other gears and that's what's important.) So with the tooth pitch held constant, varying the radius of the gear proportionally varies the number of teeth on the gear. Or in a different way, setting the number of teeth on the gear likewise sets the radius.
LEGO has carefully selected a tooth pitch such that certain special radii have nice, neat, multiple-of-four tooth counts, and those special radii are what ultimately determine which gears mesh with which gears on a strictly orthogonal basis. It just so happens that a few unconventional (and technically disallowed by the "rules") diagonals on that orthogonal grid permit the improper meshing of gears that normally cannot mesh at all, ever, on the orthogonal basis. :)
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for the brilliant demonstration.
Thanks Darren, I have found it very useful myself too 🙃
Great video! Really clear explanation of how you figured it out, and why it works. I love that you used geometry instead of algebra.
Just one addition: it’s pretty easy to get half-stud offsets in one axis, and not too hard to get a half-stud offset in both axes. So depending what you’re trying to do, that could make those spots, and therefore distances and combinations, available.
Genius stuff. I'll be the folks at Lego were like "I didn't know that combination worked".
Good one. I like the cheat sheet and the "intermediate gear" part.
The only thing I would like to add:
Gears without a "spacer" at the hub will not glide too well when placed flush with a layer of lift arms.
(Not sure what the technnical term for this spacer is. The 94925 has it, the 32269 doesn't.)
E.g. bevel gears sit on that surface with their full side area and will kinda snag a bit.
You can hear and feel it when turning them.
So, it still would work, but I always try to add a bushing or generally keep them away from lift arm sides, when I would have to place multiple like that.
Just to reduce the friction. It may add up otherwise.
What a tremendous amount of work! Thank you for sharing, I found it very helpful.
This is super helpful. As a kid building I would just remember patterns that worked for the various gears I had. The radius chart is brilliant. Thanks!
Hi Chrimofer. Thanks - yeah I have found the chart super useful during when creating new designs. 🙃
Fantastic work. Love the way you constructed the lesson and the various tables. I want to try to make a gearing poster that FLL coaches can hang on the wall and this is an amazing resource. As a second portion of the poster, I'm hoping to do something similar for right angle meshes.
I really enjoyed your detailed analysis. Thank you.
Hi thanks - I hope it's helpful for your own designs!
Very cool video! Your explanations are very good and easy to understand.
Thanks for the great feedback! 😀
Thank you, really useful information!
Great to hear you liked it. 🙃
do you have any good tips for meshing a worm gear with a 20 tooth beveled gear? Thanks! And this video is super helpful for other gear fitting questions I've had!
Could you do a version of this for aligning liftarms with each other at angles? For example the well-known 4-5 triangle that allows a 6-long liftarm to snap onto the grid at an angle. I was wondering if there was a way to figure out larger combos.
Great video! An interesting fact is that from the ones you mentioned no diagonal meshing is mathematically exact other than the 5 distance using a (3, 4) diagonal.
This is because the distances form a right angle triangle and therefore they must satisfy pythagoreans theorem. So for gear distance c and diagonal (a, b) you need to have a^2+b^2=c^2. Notice that a and b are integers, meaning that c^2 must be an integer to have the equation exact. But this is not the case if c is ending with *.25 or *.5 or *.75
Hi Levente. Yes you are right. I am a big math fan and knew that my meshing's weren't mathematically exact but neither is a piece of Lego! LOL. Even for a 3,4,5 triangle lego pieces are just a plastic approximation to the mathematical dimension. How about if we use a =0.75, b=1, then c=1.25 🙃
@@TechnicBrickPower Yes, you are right, there's a reason why those meshings work. I wonder if there's a mathematical model (say with some error parameter for this non-exactness) that can derive those cases... 🤔
0.75, 1, 1.25 is a valid right angle triangle but in the grid you've used, you can't put two holes 0.75 apart from each other. If we try more scalings of the (3, 4, 5) triangle there's (1.5, 2, 2.5) which fails for the same reason in the grid, but what you can do is take an axle and separate two 4210851 connectors with 1 whole and 1 half washer. The holes will be 1.5 apart!
Hi Levente, I guess you could search for points that are some epsilon away from exactness - kind of what I did by hand really. The search space is quite small. Yes too bad 0.75 isn't on the grid 😂
Technic Brick Power hey somewhat relevant, why am I unable to connect a 5l beam between a 3l,4l shape?
@@handsomejack4947 Hi Jack, It's because a 5L beam is actually only 4 long. You need to count the gaps between the holes for the 3,4,5 triangle. So you need to connect a 6 (diagonal) on to a 5 long and a 4 long. Or you can double that and connect an 11 (5x2+1) long to 9 (4x2+1) long and 7 (3x2+1) long.
Nicely done
Thank you! Cheers! 😂
This was VERY helpful! TYSM!!!!!
THIS IS THE NEXT LEVEL OF LEGO GEARS
Thanks hope you found it useful! 🙃
Thank you for this amazing gear analysis. You wouldn't have the 2 tables (papers) you show in the video for download, would you? Please.
I tried finding it on the website, but nothing. I guess I'll just have to type it in manually.
The 32 teeth gear is conspicuous by its absence,
so I'm sure Lego will give us another Star Destroyer set instead.
Hi Massimo. LOL yes it's weird since they make so many other new pieces! I thought they would have found this gear useful in their own models. 🙃
I cannot find these graphs on your website, it would be really nice if you added them there!
Hi, may I know what kind of software did u use for the lego gear simulation in the beginning? I've tried using LDD to design & mesh several gears to simulate it. However the simulation doesn't work bcs of the latest version. Btw great video sir ✨️
Hi Hana. I wrote my own code to modify the Studio animation files to do it. It's a bit of work but doable. Thanks for your kind comments. 🙃
Very interesting! Would you have some instructions/suggestions on how to do it?
@@TechnicBrickPower Would you be able to do a vid on that?
i love this video and your channel. oh and just so you know there are a lot of better gear meshing if you use angled beams because the 8 and 36 tooth gears like to slip a lot so i put it on a angled beam and it works perfectly
Hi Adrian. Thanks for your nice comments - I haven't used angled beams much as grids are easier to work with - however could be good for an intermediate gear - will look into it. 🍺🍺
I would expect Lego to never release 32 tooth gear because you can already create all the same ratios using 16 tooth gear with 2:1 additional gearing. Basically the only reason for 32 tooth gear would be to get 2:1 gearing with integer spacing. However, 32 tooth gear being quite a big one, coming up with alternatives with roughly similar space requirements isn't that hard.
Hi Mikko. I hope they do create the 32 tooth one day - every extra gear or component gives you so many more options. I know what you mean with the 2:1, but the 32 would also allow you to span 4 spaces with two gears which you currently cannot do. 🙃
I bet, LEGO did not know about this facts!
HI Alex, I think Lego knows way more that this! LOL 😀
intermediate gears may not affect the gear ratio, they do however affect the sense of rotation.
Hi Kabouter! Yes that's a valid point. And it's a handy one because I quite often use an intermediate gear for that purpose - should have mentioned it in the video. Thanks for your comment. ;)
Have you considered making an app, phone app and/or webapp, similar to what Sariel has done? Sariel's app is limited to just two gear pairs, and offers no in-depth numbers, just gear pairings. Having a similar tool that has intermediate gears would be helpful.
The 56t and 60t gears on the turntable types 1/2 and 3 tops should be added to the charts, as well as the internal 24t gear, on the turntable type 1/2 bases, and internal 140t gear on the set of 11x11 curved racks. These might be more difficult to place within a gear train, but every chart/app feels incomplete without these additions.
Also, I'd consider putting the spacing within your chart, such as (3,4) and (0,5) for the 40t-40t pairing. Quickly glancing at the chart, this would make pairings quicker.
I'd be curious to see a chart for half stud spacing. I know this can't be done on liftarms, but it can be done by using axles/pins with connectors that have perpendicularly oriented connections. Technically these could have any spacing, but Lego doesn't make anything other than stud and half stud wide bushes.
If I had access to a 3D printer, it'd be nice to prototype a 32t gear, as well as the missing 44t, 48t, and 52t gears, and making standard variants of the 56t and 60t gears. As well as quarter and three quarter bushings. And maybe try a variety of gear designs like inversing which gears are bevel and spur, or making more crown gears like the 24t crown gear.
Hi there thanks for your comment! I haven't had a chance to look at Sariel's gear calculator yet. If I was going to do one I was thinking one where you can upload an .ldr file of a technic model and it would calculate the gear ratios of all components relative to a driving axle(s) - maybe by colour coding it in the ldr as such. Would that be useful? It would probably include differentials etc.
I am not sure quarter sizing would be that beneficial as I am not sure what it would allow you to do that you can't already - maybe you have something specific in mind? I have been wondering for a long time why a 32 tooth gear hasn't come out yet - it would really add a lot of options.
@@TechnicBrickPower When I suggested the app idea, I was referring to something similar to what Sariel already has with his gear coupler part of the app. Sariel's solution finds a gearset based on the offset between those gears. Your solution can find an offset between gears based on a specific gear ratio. Two entirely different methods of building, Sariel's essentially has the frame already built and needs gears, while yours essentially has the geartrain already decided and needs a frame built around it.
Making an active calculator app that ingests an .lrd is going to have to understand how the gearsets mesh, which makes things very complicated very quickly, and that's not something that's as easily color coded. It's a good idea, but the program itself would have to know what to look for and how to look for it, which delves into the rabbit hole that is machine learning and AI. Personally, I think Sariel's passive calculator is the optimal solution, you choose two gears, it gives you the ratio, you input an entire train of gearsets, it gives you a final ratio, with the increase/decrease in speed and torque. Sariel's app also has some additional features, but I haven't really looked beyond the calculator and gear coupler.
As for my idea of using a wider range of bushing widths along an axle with connectors that hold the gears, it's fairly simple, more possibilities for gearsets. Lets look at what already exists, the half bush. With this half bush, between two gears, you can now mesh two 12t gears linearly across the axel beam. Similarly, any n.5 gearset would work in this way. Now lets apply that to quarter and three-quarter bushes, you can then mesh any n.25 and n.75 gearsets along a linear beam. It'd allow for more flexibility, though this would never exist in liftarms. And beyond flexibility of what gears can be used in a straight line, it reduces the need for intermediate gears, and could lower part count in geartrains that need specific ratios within it. Even further, this could also reduce the volume a build takes up, as you're now taking up less space due to the lack of needing intermediate gears.
With all of the gear ratios nicely adding up to n.0, n.25, n.5, and n.75, quarter bushings should exist to allow more of these gearsets to be used. A three-quarter bushing should exist as a complimentary piece, such as how we have half bushes and full bushes, a three-quarter bush would take the place of a quarter + half bush set, such as how a full bush takes the place of a half + half bush set.
I also think a wider range of bush sizes could also be interesting in chain systems, whether that's a plain chain or a track chain. Again, wider flexibility to the system, only this time it has more to do with overall shape and tension of the chain, as pulley placement has more varied positioning.
Lego should actually produce a 32t gear, there's no logical reasoning for why that one specific gear is missing from the set. I also wish Lego would give us thicker gears with a 45° helix, so that we can finally have stacked perpendicular meshing; instead of a bevel-bevel with a stack of gears behind one of the bevels, we could reduce the set from four gears down to two gears, in a much smaller footprint, in what's probably also a much stronger gearset. Sometimes I feel like Technic is on the back burner when it comes to part innovation, an entire theme can come out with an entire assortment of new parts, yet it takes literal years for Technic just to get a revised gear that has reinforcement, and even longer to even get a new tooth count on a gear; the amount of new parts Technic gets in comparison to any other theme is lackluster.
Hi Again. Ok I will have a look at Sariel's calculator and see if I can implement your ideas. I think I can create something to dissect and process an .ldr file to calculate the gear ratios of the gears in it. It would discard all pieces that are not axles or gears, or axle joins and go from there.
Yeah ok I see what you mean with the .75 spacing. Might be an idea instead of using 0.25/0.75 bushes and axles (because in practice these can push apart with the force of the gears) to simply 3d print liftarms with holes with these types of spacings - that way you can ensure strong support for the gears. Mind you - if you are going to print 3d parts to create spacing to allow specific gears to mesh you may as well print 2 gears with a number of teeth that give you the gearing ratio you are after, e.g. 19 teeth and 37 if you want 19:37 for some reason...
I totally agree with your sentiment about lego technic parts - not many new are released that often. I would love some smaller and more compact springs, more connectors, and also more electrical components - e.g. limit switches etc. what about you?
@@TechnicBrickPower In your idea of a program that can dissect and process an .ldr, how do you plan on detecting meshing gears? What about setups with multiple inputs on a singular output, or multiple outputs on a singular input? What about gearboxes that use catches and driving rings? This is where I think it'll get too complex, processing a .ldr to only have gears and relevant components is fairly simple, but the complex part is when the program needs to evaluate which gear is meshing with which other gears. If you find a way to accurately detect gear meshing, then your calculator idea would work, my only concern is finding a way to detect gear meshing.
In my idea of .25 and .75 spacing, I only considered using axles and bushes because Lego doesn't make any liftarms with a spacing outside of 1 stud. I also don't think Lego would ever plan on producing liftarms with alternate spacing, just because it's such a rare occurrence to need that kind of spacing. But we do have half bushes and a half spacing adapter in the form of the engine crankshaft part #2853; but the problem with #2853 is that you need a pin hole gear, not an axle gear. Lego doesn't use .25 or .75 spacing for anything, but I think it would be more likely that .25 and .75 bushes would be an official part, rather than the likeliness of a liftarm with spacings outside of 1 stud.
I have no problem with custom parts, but I believe custom parts should remain within what Lego would produce themselves, which would include gears without 4-fold rotational symmetry that modern Lego uses. Which is why I think liftarms should remain within the 1 stud spacing, as that's what Lego uses and refuses to implement alternate spacings. But Lego does have half bushes, and connectors that can adapt a liftarm/axle to .5 stud spacing, so .25 and .75 spacings via bushes and connectors remain a technical possibility, and thus I believe custom parts for adapting to .25 and .75 spacings would be okay.
For an analogy to my argument of custom parts, think of the various supercars. It'd be easy to 3d print a custom shell, similar to what the RC hobby uses, to put on top of a Lego chassis, but that's not in the spirit of Lego. I believe all custom parts should be within the spirit of Lego, thus custom parts should remain realistic to what Lego already makes. The only major exception to this is when a relevant part doesn't already exist, such as Barman's CV joint design from 2009, which Lego later made an official part based on the same basic design.
As for future parts, I think more electrical components would be cool, but anything outside of motors would probably fall into the Mindstorms and Education themes. Spike Prime comes with a force sensor, which could probably be used as a limit switch, though I'm not sure how much intercompatibility there is between the Mindstorms/Spike Prime ecosystem and the Powered Up ecosystem. Powered Up also has a color and distance sensor, which could be used as a non-physical limit switch. I think Lego will eventually expand upon the Powered Up line, and hopefully integrate Mindstorms/Spike Prime components into a singular ecosystem.
As for Technic-specific parts, I just want a wider array of functional pieces. More gears, sizes, alternate typing for spur and double bevel, more half bevel varieties, crown gears, 45° helical gears, more driving ring gear varieties, have a driving ring variety with an axle hole instead of a pin hole, etc. Wider array of actuators, pneumatic and gear driven, in more sizes. Better steering and suspension components. More n.5 length axles, more telescopic parts like what the CV joint with the female axle hole provides, more axle-pin varieties, more varieties for frictionless pins, etc. Basically, I just want the Technic theme to finally be fleshed out to it's full potential in terms of available parts.
I also wish Technic subtheming would make a comeback. Cyberslam, Slizer, Roboriders, and classic Bionicle, were all great themes. I think bringing back subtheming of Technic would bring more attention to the Technic theme. More attention would result in more popularity, and more popularity would result in more products, and those products would inevitably have newer pieces; just like what all the old subthemes did, especially Bionicle, though most of it's pieces were unique and were odd to use with standard Technic builds. Overall, I think Lego should take the risk of expanding Technic again, the original Bionicle run lasted almost a decade, which was clearly a worthwhile investment for Lego, so I think they should take that risk again. I was never too fond of Hero Factory, though, as I felt like it branched too far away into it's own action figure theme, as it was all ball-snaps, and finding any actual Technic in it was rare, and the following revival of Bionicle was the same way. I just think bringing back the idea of Technic subthemes would introduce a much wider variety of parts, again, like what the various old subthemes did.
Speaking of the Spike Prime and Mindstorms sets, I wish we'd get more color variations in parts. More magentas, teals, medium azures, reds, blues, yellows, greens, etc. A wider color palette would always be nice. Though, this would only be properly implemented if Lego expanded Pick-A-Brick's selection. After Lego bought BrickLink, I had hopes that they'd make Pick-A-Brick into a first-party variation of BrickLink, have every piece available, and expand upon this to provide every color from the current Lego color palette. Unfortunately, I'm losing hope that this will ever happen, though it's a genius business idea to offer this.
However, one intermediate gear (or any odd number of those) will indeed affect the direction of rotation.
Well I knew this already but didnt know that this worked with all gears!
Hi uaymet, yes it's quite handy having all the combinations at your fingertips.
@@TechnicBrickPower yeah but thats awesome! Keep the good work ;)
@@TechnicBrickPower but this can help me a lot when I get more gears and pieces to make my own mocs :)
Thankyou
Cool
Hey you're meant to be on vacaction ;). Got another 2 speed automatic gearbox coming up next week. This one is a bit bigger but works well too.
Technic Brick Power I just got back from vacation and I hope I have the parts for the next build
You will need 3 differentials... 6573 😀
Technic Brick Power aw man I don’t even have one of them :( but that’s ok, it probably means it’s a lot better than the first one. I guess i have to get started on making a bricklink order! Also, is there a bricklink store that you recommend for these rare parts? I can’t find a single store that has the parts I need. And how big is the new gearbox gonna be? I need one for my 4x4 car.
@@pantsinmyants2810 At the moment it is 16x5x7 studs. There are a lot of different stores selling this part - take your pick. www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=6573&name=Technic,%20Gear%20Differential,%2024-16%20Teeth&category=%5BTechnic,%20Gear%5D#T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0}
32t gear it's for 3d print only
Hi Dihn. Yes at this stage...maybe in the future Lego will make it for us 🙃
An absolutely superb explanation, as usual!
I'd also like to recommend Sariel's Gear Calculator app (unfortunately only for Android, but the tools are available on his web page as well!). It contains both a gear mesher, switchable between liftarms and old studded beams (as the vertical separation between rows is bigger with those), a calculator for the gear ratio of a gearing sequence, and a calculator for making planetary gears! play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.sariel.brickgearratiocalculator
Hi Johan. Thanks for your detailed comment - glad you enjoyed the video. Yes a few people have pointed me towards Sariel's calculator - can't wait to have a look at it - just need to get an Android device! 😀
@@TechnicBrickPower Most of thw separate tools are available on his webpage sariel.pl too!
Thank you very much for this great video!
Hope you found it useful! 🙃