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I am not a mechanical engineer but one thing I understand is ambiguity in linkages. It may be because I have a brain that is good at analyzing mechanical connections or because so many people send me mechanisms asking “why doesn’t this work?” Either way, it’s fairly easy…
Continue readingI’ve been torn on changing the test software from using splines as a sort of decoration on links into actual links themselves. There is no reason to drop in a spline as a drawing element then add a slider to it to turn it into a cam when…
Continue readingWhen I implemented the gear feature in the Linkage software, I decided to make the gears be links. This was mostly hidden and whenever a gear needed to turn a crank or be turned by a crank, I opted to have the user “fasten” the gear to the…
Continue readingThe spline and cam features are working in the Linkage software. Above is a video with my first attempt at a tutorial. Since I haven’t used the software to create splines and cams much, I stutter and pause a bit while thinking about what to do next. It’s…
Continue readingAfter many more hours of work, I have a complete polyline editor. Each segment can be a Bezier curve or a straight line. Each node can be a cusp or have the control points smooth and optionally symmetrical. Nodes can be added and deleted and the curve can…
Continue readingI did some work this week on the cam feature for the Linkage program. Cams are found in many places including in car engines – they open and close the valves – and in many industrial machines. Car engine cams are all based on a similar shape and…
Continue readingThere is a new Microsoft Windows package manager. A package manager is a system of tools that let you install and remove software by simply referring to it by name. The package manager knows where to get the software so you don’t need to. You simply type “winget…
Continue readingI use Open Live Writer to create images for my blog. More specifically, I have some old posts that use the decorative borders on images ad I want to add new images that match that style; using Open Live Writer lets me have that style. I’m starting to…
Continue readingI decided to buy an Arduino board and some components to go with it. I have some 10-or-more-year-old servos sitting in a box from when I experimented with them directly connected to a PC so it made sense to plug them into a board plugged into the Arduino…
Continue readingThe Ratio button once sat in the Dimensions panel just below the text box. I moved it a long time ago because I wanted to show text there that described the numbers shown in that text box. But I didn’t want to take up space in the toolbar…
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