Printed gear transmission
3D-printed gears, a brushed DC motor, a potentiometer. A lab test of how that transmission behaves — before it is asked to do work on a robot.
A bench experiment, 5 July 2024, at Demonstrator Lab Amsterdam. The question is practical: do printed gears work as a motor transmission, under control you can feel with a knob?
Why test the gears on the bench
Hobby servos hide the gearbox. A brushed DC motor and printed teeth do not. You watch the mesh under a knob you can turn. That is cheaper to learn on a desk than inside a trunk climber or a later arm.
The same class of printed transmission shows up later on Basil Bot, where the gears are in the open on a 4-axis arm. This clip is earlier and narrower: motor, two printed gears in a printed housing, a breadboard, a hand on the potentiometer.
On the bench
Phone clip at DLAB, 5 July 2024. Turn the knob, the large gear moves. That is the whole test.
Work with us
Printed mechanics, a motor you can drive from a microcontroller, CAD you can print: firmware and CAD. Email services@olivabot.com.