I am building a small Pan and Tilt Mechanism design with no electrics. Using the differential set up
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This is what I have built, I was thinking of a small worm gear and wheel connection to the RH bevel shaft but could not work out how to apply tension or keep the tension off so the Pan / Rotation DoF would work.
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More info please
This depends on EXACTLY what you want to do.
If you want to maintain the tilted angle WRT horizontal while you are rotating this set up won’t work.
To do this the rotating platform or whatever must be kept horizontal and the tilting bit rides around on that.
The set up you have shown I think (I am guessing here which is pretty normal) operates like this.
Assuming some sort of worm or other drive on the right hand gear.
Rotating the right hand gear will rotate the centre vertical shaft/gear as long as the left hand gear is free. Tilting could be achieved by locking ANY of the 3 gears in position then the WHOLE assembly would tilt WRT the driving mechanism.
Now if you release the lock and rotate the right hand gear you will rotate ONLY the centre shaft/gear. Now if the tilt is say 45º you will only get that angle while the shaft is pointing in one direction. As the shaft is rotated the angle will point upwards either side of centred and will probably be horizontal at the +/- 90º mark. And any polarity conscious bits like an antenna will rotate with it.
As I say I am only guessing here at exactly what you want to do but I am open to enlightenment.
Cheers Bob
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Hey there, @Greg311711, and welcome to the forums.
Bob is right. Without a more detailed description of your project including what you’re trying to achieve, what mechanisms you already have in place, we can give a very detailed response.
In addition, I would also say that this is primarily an electronics forum. While there are people here who can give good advice re: mechanical processes, don’t be surprised if you don’t get too many responses.
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Nice idea! A differential setup works really well for a purely mechanical pan-tilt since it lets you control two axes smoothly without adding motors or electronics. As long as the gearing is well balanced and backlash is kept low, you should get pretty intuitive motion. I’ve seen this work especially well for small camera or sensor mounts.
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