Gear Design: What is it Going to Cost?
You may not even finish writing your product specification before the commercial questions start. As a designer you may think this is a sales department […]
Gear Talk With Chuck
Finding the Right Combination
One of the hallmarks of a good designer is an unwillingness to settle for the first solution that meets the mission requirements. It is an […]
Getting Started on a Design
You finally have that product specification completed and can begin designing the gearbox. The gears, you will quickly find, are the easy part; especially if […]
Checking Off the Boxes
Checklists are a great way to make sure you are not forgetting something. I learned this as a Tenderfoot Boy Scout on my first campout. […]
Gearbox Specs: Connecting to the System
Your specification needs to include guidance on the interfaces to the rest of the system. Sometimes the “envelop” is wide open, other times it is […]
Competitive Analysis
Designers love to think they can build a better mousetrap. But few of them ever follow through. As much as we enjoy the unique solution […]
Gearbox: Defining Loads
There was a time when no thinking person drove a car with more than 100,000 miles on a long-distance trip. A standard warranty was 12 […]
The Gearbox: Known Unknowns
A product specification needs to encompass everything known about the application, and that includes anything that is “unknown.” No, I am not trying to play […]
Gear Design: Defining the Goal
A critical step to having a successful project is defining the objective. Seems like a simple concept, but it is often overlooked or so poorly […]
Gear Design: Putting Knowledge to Work
We have now spent over half the year reviewing fundamental concepts in gears. Knowledge is just trivia unless you put it to work; it can […]