YP Planetary Gear is designed to assist teachers and students when they study the working of a planetary gear train. (this software is not related in any way with astronomy).
A planetary gear train is a mechanism consisting of an assembly of meshed gears: the sun gear, the planet carrier, and the ring gear. The automatic transmission in an automobile uses the planetary gear train to transmit power from the engine to the wheels at various controllable speeds and torques. The transmission of power is varied by locking one or the other of the three gears.
With YP Planetary Gear, you may observe the motion of a planetary gear train when one of its parts is locked. The program also calculates the ratio of the angular velocities when one of its parts is locked.
Required Hardware and Software: YP Planetary Gear runs on any Macintosh computer with MAC OS 7.0 or later. It needs about 900 Kb on your hard disk and 800 Kb of RAM. The software runs on older models with 68000 processors (Mac Plus, Mac Classic), but simulations are slower.
Theory:
Theoretical analysis of a planetary gear train shows the following relation between the angular velocity of the various parts of the mechanism:
Rsws + Rrwr = 2Rpwp
where Rs = Radius of sun gear
ws = Angular velocity of sun gear
Rp = Radius of planet carrier
wp = Angular velocity of planet carrier
Rr = Radius of ring gear
wr = Angular velocity of ring gear
╩
Program operation:
When you launch YP Planetary Gear, the animation window is displayed on the screen: the animated simulation of the mechanism will appear in this window. Select item "Start Animation" in the "Animation" menu to start the animation. The "Open Theory" items in the "File" menu summarize and illustrate the theory and operation of planetary gears. Use the "Calculator" window to calculate the ratio of the angular velocity of the driving gear and the angular velocity of the driven gear.
╩
Using YP Planetary Gear:
Note: To help you explore all menus of the program, you may use balloon help (with the "?" menu, in the top right corner of the screen).
Menus:
"Apple" Menu:
╩
Use this menu to
- open an item from the Apple Menu Folder,
- read information about YP Planetary Gear,
- consult online help, or
- unlock your copy of the program.
Ñ "About YP Planetary Gear..." item: When you select this item from the Apple menu, a dialog box showing information about the version number and copyright is displayed, as well as whether your copy of the software has been registered or not.
╩
"Unlock" button: This button is visible only if your copy of the software has not yet been personalized. After receiving your personal unlocking code, click on this button to open another dialog box so that you may enter (or paste) your name and your unlocking code in the appropriate zones.
╩
"Help & Info" Button: This button gives you access to online help. Information included in the help window is the same as that you are now reading.
"File" Menu:
╩
Use the "File Menu" to
- open the calculator window
- open one of the two theory windows
- close the active window
- quit YP Planetary Gear.
"Calculator" Item:
When you select the "Calculator" item from the "File" menu, the dialog box illustrated below is displayed.
╩
The calculator window is used to calculate the ratio of the angular velocity of the driving gear and the angular velocity of the driven gear. Click on one of the three radio buttons to choose the part of the system that remains at rest, and enter numerical value of "Rs" (radius of the sun gear) and "Rr" (radius of the ring gear). "Rp" (radius of the planet carrier) and the resulting ratios are calculated and displayed in the dialog box. If the numerical value of one of the radii is incorrect (if, for instance, you enter a letter instead of a number), the symbol "???" is displayed instead of the result and an explicatory message is displayed at the bottom of the dialog box. You may enter numerical values in decimal or scientific notation (for instance: 2.4 e-3 or 0.0024). The exact separators to use (point or comma) depend on the settings in the "Numbers" control panel of your computer.
"Open Theory 1" Item:
When you select this item from the "File" menu, the program displays a window presenting an illustration of a planetary gear train, the name of each of its parts and the equations describing the relation between the angular velocity of each of its parts.
╩
"Open Theory 2" Item:
When you select this item from the "File" menu, the program displays a window showing several configurations with the corresponding changes in speed or in torque.
╩
"Close" Item:
When you select this item from the "File" menu, the program closes the active window.
"Quit" Item:
Use this item from the "File" menu to quit the program "YP Planetary Gear".
"Edit" Menu:
╩
The "Cut", "Paste" and Delete" items are available only when a dialog box in which you may enter text is active.
The "Copy" item is also available when the animation window is active, so you can easily copy a frame (picture) in the clipboard.
"Animation" Menu:
╩
Use this menu
- to play the animation ,
- to stop the animation of the planetary gear set,
- to play the animation frame by frame,
- to control the speed of the animation,
- to reverse the sense of rotation.
"Locked Part" Menu:
╩
Use this menu to choose which part of the planetary gear train remains at rest during the simulation. The sun gear, the planet carrier, or the ring gear may be locked. By default, the sun gear is locked when you launch the program.
"Help" Menu
╩
YP Planetary Gear supports Balloon Help. Use this menu to show or hide help balloons, and to display online help. The information included in the help window is basically the same you are now reading.
Ordering information:
YP Planetary Gear is shareware. The unregistered version of YP Planetary Gear may be freely distributed to allow anybody to try it before registering. You are permitted to upload it to a BBS, distribute it on a CD-ROM, or give a copy to a friend.
If you want to use YP Planetary Gear on a regular basis, you must pay for a user license. You will then receive an unlocking code that will permit you to personalize your copy of the program.
The unregistered version have the following limitations:
Ñ the mention "This copy is for evaluation only." is permanently displayed in the main window.
Ñ one of the three animations is not available (the unavailable animation is chosen randomly at startup).
Your unlocked version will have the following advantages:
Ñ the mention "This copy is for evaluation only." will never be displayed again.
Ñ all of the three animations will be simultaneously available.
Ñ in addition, you will be able to unlock all future updates of YP Planetary Gear with the same unlocking code.
Methods of Payment:
Kagi, an american company, handles my payment processing. It is possible to pay by credit card (Visa, Master Card, American Express), by check or postal money order (in american dollars), with cash, or by "First Virtual".
When you are ready to pay, open the Register program that accompanies YP Planetary Gear. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish to purchase (or Site licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi.
Payments with Credit Card or First Virtual: you can email or fax the data generated by Register to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589.
Paiement with Cash or US Dollars Check: You should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-7A
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars.
Invoice: Kagi can not send an invoice to your institution. If the purchasing department of your institution requires an invoice to pay the software, you must generate the invoice yourself with the Register program (print three copies of the form). You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Payments received via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. Payments sent via fax or mail take up to 10 days after reception by Kagi. If you include your email address, you will receive an email acknowledgement.
Since we must send you the unlocking code that will permit you to unlock your copy of YP Planetary Gear, it is important that you enter your email address or your postal address (and please, do not forget to specify which country you live in). Your postal address will be used only if you do not give your email address. If you want your unlocking code sent to you by postal mail, do not enter your email address.
Detailed Prices:
Single User License: A $15.00 US registration fee will license one copy of YP Planetary Gear for use on any one computer at any one time. For example, one copy may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer to another as long as there is no possibility of it being used simultaneously on more than one machine.
Lab Packs:
2 to 4 single user licenses: $12.00 US per user.
5 to 14 single user licenses: $10.00 US per user.
15 single user licenses or more: $ 9.00 US per user.
Site License: A license covering all locations for your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles), is available at the price of $200.00 US.
Technical Support:
If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to e-mail me at pelletier@kagi.com (or ch865@freenet.carleton.ca).
⌐ 1997 Yves Pelletier
All rights reserved.
YP Planetary Gear is provided ╥as-is╙. Yves Pelletier hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Yves Pelletier will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if Yves Pelletier or an agent of his has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall Yves Pelletier be liable for any damages, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.
