Infinity Gears

346 Quintillion (346 x 10^18) Years! Even the universe (most probably) won't see the full rotation of the last gear!

IntermediateFull instructions provided10 hours2,659

Things used in this project

Hardware components

DC Motor, 12 V

Reed Switch, SPST-NO

Arduino UNO

RGB LCD Shield Kit, 16x2 Character Display

Hand tools and fabrication machines

ProBUDDY Kit

Story

Arthur Ganson built an inspiring sculpture named "Machine with Concrete" composed of 12 stages of 1/50 ratio gears all connected together. The first gear rotates at 200 rpm, full rotation takes 1/200 minutes. Guess the last gear's (which is buried in concrete) full rotation time: 13.7 Billion (10^12) years!

No matter how fast you rotate the first gear, your effort diminishes inside the system. Life is and feels similarly. We do lots of things and those add very little to the universe. So the best we can do is to do what we like and what makes us happy!

Infinity Gears Project on ProBUDDY KIT

So, we created a similar project, INFINITY GEARS, in a more compact form with rotation-counter switches at different stages, powered by an Arduino Uno. We rotate the first gear with a 250 rpm DC geared motor.

Guess the full rotation time of our last gear !? ------> Wait for it -------> 346 Quintillion (346 x 10^18) Years! Even the universe (most probably) won't see the full rotation! That's why we designed that last gear as a "Non-Rotatable square gear".

Non Rotatable Last gear

All gears in our project are 3D Printed in colors except 5 Black ones, which have small magnets on them (+1 black gear on the motor shaft, does not have a magnet). Their rotations are counted by reed switches + LEDs which are connected to an Arduino Uno + 2x16 LCD.

We've built the project on an A3 sized ProBUDDY Kit, which helps and eases a lot while building, storing, carrying your projects. (Soon on Kickstarter on 11.01.2022) Product page: https://www.sundayrobotics.com/probuddy/

ProBUDDY Kits help a lot while building, storing, carrying project hardware

1st Black gear completes its full rotation in 0.002 minute, can easily be seen..

2nd Black gear, however, completes its full rotation in 135 Days ! If you wait this long..

3rd Black gear, OMG, will complete its full rotation in 3.6 Million (3.6 x 10^6) Years!

4th Black gear, OMG, 35 Trillion (35 x 10^12)!

5th Square Black Gear, OOOOOOMMMMMMMGGGGGGG, 346 Quintillion (346 x 10^18) YEARS! (Will the universe see it rotate? Not sure about it!)

If it had been..

Gears

We will have 41 Spur gears + Motor Gear all connected together. Each gear has 45 teeth on the outside and 9 teeth on the inside. The motor gear has 9 teeth too.

At each stage, the gear ratio is 1/5. From the motor gear to the end gear, we have 41 stages connected together. That makes 1/ (5^41) gear ratio.

The motor gear completes its full rotation in 1/250 of a minute. And for the last (square) gear, it takes (1/250) * (5^41) = 1,8x10^26 Minutes!

That is 3.03x10^24 Hours!

That is 1,26x10^23 Days!

That is 3.46x10^20 Years!

And that is 346 Quintillion Years!

Schematics

Infinite Gears Electronics Hardware Schematic

Guys, our power source is 8 x AA Alcaline batteries connected in series. We have a 6V DC motor and 5V Arduino Uno + LCD + rest of the circuit. Hence we utilize 2 x LM2596 regulators for this.

In each black gear we have a magnet. We have 4 magnets in total. Right next to them there is a reed switch connected to a led and resistor and to the Arduino Uno pin. When magnet passes right next to the reed switch, we will have a transition from high to low to high at the Arduino Pin.

We have a 2x16 character LCD to show the rotational counts.

Code

Arduino Uno Code

#include <LiquidCrystal.h> /* This library must be included for LCD screen use. */

LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2); /* Arduino pins to which the LCD is connected. */

/* Reed switch sensor definitions. */
int reed1 = 6;
int reed2 = 7;
int reed3 = 8;
int reed4 = 9;

int reed_status1, reed_status2, reed_status3, reed_status4; 

/* Counter definitions. */
int counter1 = 0;
int counter2 = 0;
int counter3 = 0;
int counter4 = 0;


void setup() {

  lcd.begin(16, 2); /* The row and column numbers of the LCD are specified. */

/* The text to be written on the first line of the LCD. */
  lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
  lcd.print("SUNDAY  ROBOTICS");

/* The text to be written on the second line of the LCD. */
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print(" INFINITE GEARS");

/* Reed switches are set as input. */
  pinMode(reed1,INPUT);
  pinMode(reed2,INPUT);
  pinMode(reed3,INPUT);
  pinMode(reed4,INPUT); 


  delay(1500);  /* The splash screen will wait for 1500 milliseconds. */

}
void loop() {

/* The reed switch sensor state is read and then the state is passed to the variable. */
  reed_status1 = digitalRead(reed1);
  reed_status2 = digitalRead(reed2);
  reed_status3 = digitalRead(reed3);
  reed_status4 = digitalRead(reed4);

// If the reed switch state is 0, the system waits for 100 milliseconds and the counter increments by 1. */
  if(reed_status1 == 0){
    delay(100);
    counter1++;
    }
    
  else if(reed_status2 == 0){
    delay(100);
    counter2++;
    } 
    
  else if(reed_status3 == 0){
    delay(100);
    counter3++;
    }

  else if(reed_status4 == 0){
    delay(100);
    counter4++;
    }
    
    }

  lcd.clear(); /* Clean the LCD screen. */

  /* The text to be written after the splash screen. */
  lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
  lcd.print(" INFINITE GEARS");
  
  /* Counter values are written on the second line. */
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print("F:");
  lcd.print(counter1);
  lcd.print(" S:");
  lcd.print(counter2);
  lcd.print(" T:");
  lcd.print(counter3);
  lcd.print(" F:");
  lcd.print(counter4);
  lcd.print(" F:");
  lcd.print(counter5);
   
 }

Infinity Gears