How to Draw Clock Gears

in Visio

By

Mike MacLeod

Copyright Mike MacLeod 2017.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be distributed
or sold. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

Printed and published by Mike MacLeod,

Benoni.
South Africa.

cammhifi@gmail.com
http://novelbooks.weebly.com

2017 1
 How to Draw a Clock Gear in Visio.
By Mike MacLeod.
Programs required:
Forest Moons 'GearDxf' - free
A9Tech 'A9Convertor' - free
Visio, V3.0 - 2007

Step 1. Open Forest Moons 'GearDxf' and set the parameters, making sure that you
have a dimension in the 'Bore hole diameter' box, then save the file to a folder
of your choosing, noting what units you used, i.e. mm or inches.

Step 2. Open A9Tech 'A9Convertor'.

Load the DXF file that you saved in step 1, by dragging it and dropping
it onto the 'DWG/DXF File Input' list box.
Select 'DXF' from the drop down menu for Output file format.
Select 'AutoCAD 2000/2002' from the drop down menu in the 'Output file
Version' box.
Select the folder where you want to save the converted file to and press
'Convert'.
Click 'OK' to exit program.

2017 2
Step3. Open Visio and select a 'New Page'. Set the page units to match the units of
the original dxf file that you created in GearDxf, i.e. mm or inches.
If you're new to Visio, first read Tips and Tricks lower down.
Select 'Insert/Cad Drawing' from the top menu and then load your newly
converted 'whatever.dxf'file.
A new tab 'Cad Drawing Properties' opens, untick 'Lock Size and Position'
as well as 'Lock Against Deletion' boxes.

Click OK to close.
Your gear will now appear with red text at the bottom.

2017 3
 Right click on the gear and select 'Cad Drawing Object' then select
'Convert'.
Untick layers 'Notes' and '0', then select OK.

The drawing will now be converted and a warning will appear: 'The file was
opened but problems occurred' - ignore this and close it.
Click on the red text at the bottom of the drawing and delete it. If a
warning says that you can't, right click and untick the two boxes as we did
previously by right clicking and selecting Cad Drawing Object/Properties,
just in case they have been reset.
Highlight the gear again and select 'Fill' and choose a colour. At this stage
nothing happens. With the gear still highlighted, select from the top menu bar
'Shape/Operations/Fragment', whereby the gear turns to the colour you
selected. While it is still highlighted, click 'Send to the back' and the blue
centre circle appears.

Now highlight both the gear and the circle and press 'Fragment' again.
The centre hole should be highlighted, if not, select it and remove the 'Fill'
colour. Set the size to whatever you think the centre boss/hub diameter should
be or as called out in your drawing.

2017 4
 To add spokes to the gear, I draw a reference circle to just below the root of
the teeth, say the same distance away as the height of a tooth.

I then draw two rectangles, the same width as my planned spokes and I make
them slightly shorter than the diameter of the inner circle we just drew - their
corners should touch the cirle. Rotate one 90 degrees and centre both on the
gear. You should now have a cross in the centre of the gear.
Make sure that the inner circle that represents the boss or hub is large enough
to see, if not make it slighly bigger.
Using the 'Arc Tool', draw a triangle in one of the quadrants formed by the
cross, following around the hub circle on the inner corner and the reference
circle on the outer side. Use the guides to push or pull your triangle into shape,
then select 'Corner rounding' and select a radius. Your triangle will now have
nice rounded corners.
Copy and paste this triangle into the other three corners and when they're all
aligned, delete the cross rectangles.

Now highlight the gear (do not highlight the circles) as well as the four
triangles and select 'Fragment'..

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 Delete the four triangles and the centre circle and you should be left with your
gear, complete with spokes.
Select the gear and 'Send it to the Back'. Delete any unwanted circles and
alignment marks, then select 'Save as' and save as a .dxf file. Give it a
different name so that you don't mix it up with the others that you created.

Views with circles and without circles.

You'll have to optimize the gcode for the one on the left because the circles
represent the different thicknesses.

Tips and Tricks

Visio is quick and easy to use, and very accurate and while it is only a 2D
program, you can design and manufacture a variety of items. For me the best
thing is to optimize the menu tool bar with the commands you use the most,
see my sample below.

One of the best features of Visio is the Fragment, Union and Combine
commands, along with the Shift key, allowing us to make complex shapes.

In making the gear above, it required just the mouse and the Shift button and a
trick I learnt early on and that was to use alignment ticks or lines to aid in
getting things aligned perfectly. It also helps to have the Size & Position
window open. This allows you to see the measurements where you can modify
the numbers and angles. I also have a stencil open called 'Dimension -
Engineering, whereby you can add dimensions to your drawing, see below.

2017 6
 When aligning objects, the first item selected, is the master and the next item
selected becomes the slave and will align to the master. In other words, all the
items selected, will align to the first item selected.
Here is where the alignment tools help on the tool bar, allowing you to align
top, bottom, centre or left and right and allows you to quickly draw a design.

For example I selected all the circles by

dragging the cursor around them using
the mouse and then selecting the
Vertical align tool, then the Horizontal
one, aligning all the items at once. You
can also nudge an item into place by
highlighting it and then using the up
down, left right arrow keys to move
them. By holding the shift key down
while doing this provides a finer degree
of movement. The shift key also allows
you to select multiple items by first
selecting one item, and then holding the

2017 7
 shift key down, and selecting more
items, thus keeping them all
selected.
I also use tick marks, short lines, to
help in aligning things like squares
or rectangles. An example was the
copy and pasting of the triangles
for the spoke cut outs.

Here I have copied, pasted and

flipped the triangle horizontally
and then moved it to where I want
it to be. I have drawn two tick lines
and have first selected the
horizontal rectangle in the cross,
then holding the shift button, have
selected the tick mark to the right
and then hit the 'Top Alignment'
tool. This aligns the tick mark with the top of the rectangle. I do the same to
align the top tick mark by first
selecting the vertical rectangle,
holding Shift and then selecting
the top tick mark and hitting the
'Align right' tool.

Now it's just a matter of selecting

the right hand tick mark, holding
Shift, then selecting the triangle
and hitting the 'Align bottom'
tool. The triangle has now aligned
itself on top of the rectangle and
it's just a matter of doing the
same with the top tick line and
using the 'Align left' tool.

To save time you can now select both

triangles, copy, paste and then flip vertically.
While they are still both highlighted, move
them into position. Now I align the right
hand tick mark with the bottom of the
horizontal rectangle and align both bottom
triangles with the 'Top align' tool. Instead of
now re-aligning the top tick mark, I simply
highlight the triangle above the one I want to
move and then align the bottom one with it,
by selecting the 'Left or Right align' tool
depending which one you're moving. QED.

You can test the dxf file with a CAD

program like CNC USB Motion Controller

2017 8
 and simulate the cutting of the gear. I have had many things made by using
either laser cutting or water jet cutting, like brackets, wood templates, wood
animals for mosaic designs, motor bike engine overhaul stands etc.

2017 9