Experiments with intermittent drive.

Both gears have ten teeth, the larger drive gear is based on a seventeen tooth gear with seven of the teeth removed. The mechanism works as it is but the vertical shaft really needs a support at the top end. Turn the handle and the vertical shaft turns a full turn, stops for a bit, turns a full turn etc…

In the second draft the top of the vertical shaft is held in place. Works a treat! In the next version I will move the drive gear to the opposite side of the mechanism, it moves side to side a little as the handle is turned which can cause the teeth to disengage. Moving it to the other side of the box should solve this problem.

With the gear on its side like this you can visualise it driving a crank with a character of some sort on the top.

By changing the number and spacing of teeth all sorts of different motion configurations will be possible.