Epicyclic (planetary) gear animation

The planet gears (red) are being driven by the sun gear (green) and the ring gear (light blue). The gears were modeled procedurally with a Python script I wrote, and the rotation values for the planet gears were controlled by expressions based on the rotation values and tooth count of the ring and sun gears (which were just manually keyed).

The teeth meshing is still a little off for the planet gears, but I think that's just an issue with the way the teeth were made. I'm currently working on fixing that issue.
Rendered with Mental Ray through Maya.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• planetary
• gears
• animation
• orbital
• epicyclic

[felderup]

@iloverock1209 yes, it is a neat thing, but... not for that, what it is good for is as a cvt, by attaching a shaft on a spider to the planetaries, you can drive either the sun or ring with a motor with a gas engine at best efficiency, and an electric on the other. at low output rpm, both motors would be spinning in opposite directions, at mid speed only the gas motor would be used, and at top speed both would be turning the same direction.