Welcome to Ornithopter Crank Designer! Designed to be like Inverse kinematics for your Ornithopter, you no longer have to input different Variable like Crank radii or linkage length countless times to find the best results. Rather input the performance related information and let the calculator find the best solution! To get started, simply download the newest version and open the excel spreadsheet.
There is a more advanced version in the works: https://github.com/OrnithopterX/Ornithopter-Crank-Designer-Pro
Everything is designed to be as easy as possible to use, without limiting advanced users.
•Staggered Crank
•"Perfect" Staggered Crank*
•Inside-out Staggered Crank
•Duel Crank
I can add support for different configurations, just let me know what you want.
*While in theory, the same as the Staggered Crank profile. Only the desired wing amplitude can be used as a input leaving the calculator to find the best dihedral and anhedral, resulting in the lowest possible offset between the wings. [Thanks to Nathan Chronister for the idea]
On all profiles, the "D" input term can be set to zero, if needed.
To analyse the "perfect crank" profile data in greater depth, copy the inputs, as well as the resulting Anhedral and Dihedral. And paste the data in the staggered crank profile as inputs.
On Duel Cranks: each crank should rotate in opposite directions, to maximize flapping symmetry.
V1.20 Beta (to be updated to stable release shortly...)
- Added support for the "perfect" insided-out staggered crank!
V1.10
- Rectified an issue with the perfect Staggered crank profile outputting the wrong linkage length.
- Added the Inside-out Staggered crank profile.
- other small bugfixes.
V1.00
- initial file.