Springless Ratchet

This was one of the first projects I did when I started teaching myself how to CAD and 3D print. I challenged myself to come up with a ratchet that did not rely on any sort of biasing force (like springs, cantilevers, gravity, or magnets) and this is what I came up with. While the ratchet gear spins in its freewheeling direction, the tooth on the non-locking side of the pawl pushes the locking side of the pawl back towards the ratchet gear, ready to block the ratchet gear from rotating backwards. In practice, this causes the pawl to oscillate back and forth. There are two pawls because I also wanted the ratchet to work in any orientation. In this design, it is possible to deactivate one of the pawls by tilting the ratchet in a certain way, but it is not possible to deactivate both pawls simultaneously.

In hindsight, something like a roller clutch without springs might have achieved the same goal more elegantly.