Beginning the Orrery

We’re on the last module! Granted, there will be plenty of interfacing parts and troubleshooting but the end is now in sight. The Orrery Module has the most gears outside of the calculation module, and is complicated by half of them being on eight coaxial shafts down the center. These shafts were made from stainless tube, bored out to produce a thin wall, with brass bushings on both ends. The center is a solid 1/8” stainless shaft.

I’m beginning the orrery with the central tubes and the structure. These should be the last carbon parts (thankfully), and the pillars are simply tapped aluminum rods with the shoulders so this part was fairly painless. The central gears are now complete as well. Because all of the orrery gear trains begin on the central axis, go to an offset arbor, and then return to the central axis there is an additional constraint on the modules and tooth counts. This resulted in some unusually modules for the gears, where the nearest available cutter had to be used as an approximation

Next, I’ll be starting the off-center gears and arbors.