I did not think this was going to turn out, but I think the finished product isn’t as bad as it could be!
I started with mechanical movement 39, but changed the size of the gears so that it would looks more like a sun and a planet. Then I added another gear that orbits around the planet to represent the moon.
First, I spent time making sure everything fit together on Illustrator. Then, I did a bunch of sketches in my notebook to figure out what gears went on what layers.
Layout on Illustrator
The hardest part was keeping the gears that orbit around each other an exact distance apart from each other constantly. In order to do so, I rastered into the base so that the dowel would have to follow that indented path. I also used metal pieces with holes the exact distance apart the dowels are. The metal pieces were cut out on the plasma cutter, but it isn’t very precise. I had to make multiple iterations on the plasma cutter, and the tolerances still weren’t quite right. Meanwhile, rastering took a really long time and didn’t even cut deep enough into the wood. I tried to take a dremel to it, but I ended up ripping two bits and making the circular slot uneven.
Dremel aftermath
Eventually I gave up on that approach and fixed the “sun” gear to the base. Instead, users turn the “earth” gear around the sun and the moon moves with it. The motion isn’t exactly as described on 507, but the earth does orbit the sun still, even though the moon doesn’t quite make it all the way around the earth because the orbit crosses the center of the sun.
I spray painted the base black so that it looks like space. Before letting it dry completely I dabbed it with a paper towel to give the blackness some texture. The final product is shown below!
The final project!
Overall, the process took me about 36 hours. I used 4 pieces of laser cutter wood because my project is so big. I also used 1/8” aluminum for the metal parts and lots of sandpaper to make the wood super smooth. Taking the above into consideration, and also the fact that I pay for my own Illustrator and rent time for the plasma cutter and laser cutter, I would put the cost at around $1000.
