It's obviously not a real 24-tooth gear, so it requires a special "harness" to mesh consistently to ordinary gears, to make sure the connection between them is maintained at all times, but it does a pretty good job of simulating an actual 24-tooth gear when it's properly hooked up. One could theoretically get rid of 2 of the 4 arms of the harness (if the remaining two were perpendicular), but I wouldn't recommend it.
A note about other reduction ratios: A gear reduction ratio of 2x can be created very compactly with a differential. Other, higher gear ratios would be considerably messier and less reliable to pull off with a "big gear" due to this result, which ensures that a hexagon is the only polyhedron that has integral diagonals when it has integral sides.
Attached Files
A note about other reduction ratios: A gear reduction ratio of 2x can be created very compactly with a differential. Other, higher gear ratios would be considerably messier and less reliable to pull off with a "big gear" due to this result, which ensures that a hexagon is the only polyhedron that has integral diagonals when it has integral sides.
Attached Files