@i5963c what operating system? What version of SketchUp?

This is what I see in the Shortcutter with the current version of Sketchucation Tools.

@jgb said in Any good tutorials on BEVEL gear design in SU?:

I would appreciate if you could fully explain the SPGears dialog box as some of the terms are not reflected in other documentation.

Looks like Roberto is taking over so I'll leave it to him.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the bevel angle on the gears may not be 45° for a right angle drive. You'll have to play with that to get the correct angles so the teeth will mesh properly. You may not be able to get the exact ratio you're after, either.

See the calculator on this page: https://www.engineersedge.com/calculators/spur_gear_calculator_and_generator_15506.htm for figuring out pitch diamter based on the number of teeth.

This diagram comes from https://www.engineersedge.com/gear_formula.htm Take a look at that site to see how all the numbers are calclated.

Also see the information at https://www.engineersedge.com/gear_menu.shtml

There are gear generator tools there where you can put in the numbers you want and it'll calculate the rest.

@jgb said in Any good tutorials on BEVEL gear design in SU?:

But now I need to make gears to very specific sizes and my foggy brain cannot interpret the dialog box to do it beyond a simple diameter and tooth count.

When you refer to diameter are you talking Outside Diameter (O.D.) or Pitch Diameter (D)?

@jgb said in Any good tutorials on BEVEL gear design in SU?:

it produces gears that will be difficult to print; too many overhangs equates to a lot of tiny supports to be removed

Where are you getting these overhangs? Maybe you just need to invert the object. I expect you're going to have to live with some overhangs somewhere.

@jgb said in Any good tutorials on BEVEL gear design in SU?:

many line lengths are smaller than the printers print resolution.

Are you doing your modeling in millimeters? As I wrote before, do the modeling in meters. That is, treat millimeters as meters. So your 25mm gear would be 25 meters. When you export the .stl with model units set to meters, and them import the .stl into your slicer in millimeters, the gear will be the right size. For example, here's the SketchUp model of the gear I showed.

And the resulting .stl in the slicer. Same dimension numbers but in millimeters, not meters.

@jgb said in Any good tutorials on BEVEL gear design in SU?:

and two sets where the diameter ratios are 50mm:280mm and 50mm:140mm. Those are the hard ones to get properly meshed teeth with SPGears.

I don't think that's specific to the extension. Look at standard gear charts. You'll see that there are only certain combinations that work together.

Is it really the gear diamter that is important? Normally the gear ratio would specify the number of teeth. 50:280 as a gear ratio would also be 1:5.6 so you could start with some number of teeth for the small gear and multiply it by 5.6 to get the number of teeth for the large gear. The actual diameters of the gears may not be exactly 50mm and 280mm

FWIW, here's what it takes to make a solid object from a gear created by SP Gears.

Solid Gear.mp4

@jgb said in Any good tutorials on BEVEL gear design in SU?:

Info says the gears are mainly for SP and may not be OK if 3D printed.

You can certainly modify the geometry output of SP Gears to make solids suitable for 3D printing.

You could also modify standard gears like the one I showed to make any custom sized gears.

@MikeG73 What version of SketchUp? What operating system?

As Rich suggests, SPGears is a good option. If you can use standard bevel gears you might check manufacturers and suppliers for files you can use in SketchUp. For example I got a STEP file for the gear shown here from McMaster-Carr which I imported into SketchUp using the Universal Importer available in the ExtensionStore. The result can easily be modified for the shaft it needs to fit and so on.

Since you are modeling for 3D printing, do the modeling in meters to avoid issues with tiny faces.

Couldn't help but do a little playing while avoiding work I should do.

@gullfo

As you can see, it requires the Sketchucation ExtensionStore.

@joshvt said in Measurement window location in 2025:

for some reason was having trouble floating/ undocking it.

If you untick the box for Measurements in the View>Toolbars panel the window should be displayed in the default lower right corner location.

It should have been in the lower right corner by default. Presuming you are using SketchUp on Windows, go into View>Toolbars and deselect Measurements.

@hydrokiwi what version of SketchUp?

The author of s4u Make Face started selling it before February, 2019. See this post.

s4u Stair was a paid extension at least in 2020.

@Leggy said in Strange corners:

the layer lines go up from there

So there's an overhang? Might need to add support. Check to see that all movements on the printer and the bed are tight enough. I had an issue on my printer where the screws holding the bed to the carriage were loose. Once in a while the bed would shift during a paid movement and cause a deformation in the print. I tighted the screws and the problem disappeared.

@Leggy said in help with a thread:

I think it’s the shrinkage on the printer that’s causing the problem

That's probably it. You'll have to work that out based on the material.

@Rosketch install the Sketchucation ExtensionStore (it is required for license management, anyway) and use it to install Curviloft and the required LibFredo6. Once they are installed go to Tools>Fredo6 Collection>Curviloft>License.

In the license panel click on Purchase License.

What version of SketchUp? What operating system?

You could try switching to the classic graphics engine and see what happens.

Also make sure you have the latest graphics drivers from nVidia.

What graphics card? Which graphic engine is selected?

@DoCelikkol what version of SketchUp? What's the radius of the round over? Your GIF leaves out important information.