I made some minor changes and I’m almost ready for a v2. I fixed up some of the spacers, changed the direction of the linkage that changes the ratio, changed some of the bearings. I also changed the coloring, and it looks much cleaner (I chose pink because I have pink filament loaded in, if you guys have any recommendations please tell me). Here are some fundamental problems with the current version and how I’ll fix them in the v2:

• The biggest problem is probably gears meshing. The entire thing has to be perfectly synchronized for the gears to mesh perfectly every time, which is obviously impossible. The only thing preventing jams right now is my prayers. However, backlash does give it some room for error. I’ll probably find a better gear tooth profile for my V2, but this is sort of a fundamental problems that will exist.
• The second biggest problem is that the gears oscillate from max speed to 0 speed every half-cycle, which means the speed will be constantly oscillating. This is easily fixable: in my V2, I’ll use more driving gears (probably 4) each active for a smaller fraction of their period. This combined with elliptical gears to counter the sine waves should make the output basically constant speed.
• The linkage for the gear changing has basically zero torque, and backlash will completely fry it. Also, this adds weird thrust forces on the linear bearings which will probably cause them to bind. In my V2, I’ll probably shift from a linkage to a linear CAM type of thing (I still have to figure it out).
• This is really big and wastes some space. My V2 will (hopefully) have better packaging and be smaller. This is achieved by putting the second layer of gears on the inside of the plate and praying there is enough space.

The uniform coloring makes it look way better. Once again, if you have any colors you think would look better, please tell me.