Ford Model T transmission model

Los Angeles

2023

Eager to get a taste of real world engineering endeavors, I reached out to Johns Hopkins Mechanical engineering professors. Dr. Stephen Belkoff, reached back with a project. he wanted me to design a model of Ford Model T transmission to help him demonstrate the concept of planetary motion to his mechanical engineering undergraduate students.

My first step of this project was learning exactly how the transmission worked. This meant talking with Dr. Belkoff and visiting his classroom and lab. The picture is a depiction of a real Ford Model T transmission in Dr. Belkoff’s classroom.
After truly understanding how the transmission worked, I began creating sketched in CAD (I used Fusion 360). After making some rough CAD designs, I 3d printed some pieces to test the fit.
This is some of the pieces put together. The fit in this model was too tight. Along adding more tolerance, I made many other changes. *****
This is a picture of the CAD design of the gears.
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After making the test pieces I went and redesigned and altered most pieces of the transmission and then 3d printed all the pieces again. Most of the pieces of the transmission are in this picture.
I had to slightly sand down these pieces in order for them to fit properly.
After printing the pieces and sanding them down, I realized that due to friction between the pieces a method of lubrication would make it work best. The solution I found was creating an oil channel.
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These are the three gears assembled.
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After sanding all the pieces and creating the oil channels, I put everything together. Most pieces fit well, however, there were some pieces I had to redesign.
This is another angle of the most of the pieces of the transmission put together.
This is a picture of the transmission fully assembled without any electronics (except the motors).
After getting the transmission assembled, I began working on the circuit component of the transmission. The first step of building the circuits, I researched Arduino code and basic circuitry.
This is an Arduino uno. At this stage I learned about Arudino and coding in that language. I am going through trouble shooting of the circuits.
This is test fitting the electronic components in the 3d printed pieces.
This is a depiction of me trying to roughly wire the electronics after printing some more pieces.
After getting the circuits to work, I began fitting them to the 3d printed pieces.
In order to put all the electronics in a orderly fashion, I modified a box to be able to fit all the electronics in.
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After modifying the box, I placed the electronics in the box.
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This is a picture of the electronics components in the box with plexi-glass cut to fit the top of the box and match up with the screw holes.
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This is the entire transmission assembled
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