Triple Gear
27th April 2013
If you take three ordinary gears and put them together so that each gear meshes with the other two, then none of the gears can turn because neighbouring gears must turn in opposite directions. Triple gear avoids this problem by having the three “gears” arranged like linked rings – the gears then rotate along skew axes, and the opposite direction rule no longer applies (although see also Oskar van Deventer’s Magic Gears for another possible solution).
Astonishing. I don’t see anyway to make such a gear except with 3D printing.