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See your machine's cycle before you build it.

Cyclogram is a cycle-diagram editor for machine design engineers. Model every actuator's movements with ramps, bind them into chains, wrap the timeline at your target cycle time — and see exactly which movement decides how fast your machine runs.

Start — it's free ➜
Free — just an e-mail to sign in·Works fully offline·Your designs never leave your computer

Cyclogram in one minute

What cyclogram.app is, who it is for, and why a machine's cycle is worth drawing before the machine is built.

59 seconds, with sound. Also on YouTube.

Built for one repeating cycle

Not a generic Gantt chart — every feature exists because machine cycles need it.

Movements, ramps optionalDraw each movement the way that actuator really runs — the bar is travel: a ramp-up for the stroke out, the flat body for the time at the end position, a ramp-down for the stroke back. Leave the ramps off for something that simply switches on and off.
Bindings with offsetsChain movements together: “start 0.2 s after the clamp closes”. Move one, the whole chain follows.
Reusable librarySave tasks, groups and whole actuators with tags and folders. Drag them into any project as independent copies.
Wrap — see the real loopA machine never stops at the end of the chart; the cycle repeats. Wrap folds the timeline at your target cycle time, so a movement that runs past the end continues at the start — the return stroke overlapping the next part's infeed, exactly as the running machine does it. You design the steady-state loop, not a one-shot chart.
Marks & rulerNumbered time marks to snap and bind to — even off the grid — and a ruler that reads exact times under your mouse.
Compare viewOpen a second project below the first on a shared time axis and see the differences line up.
GroupsSelect several movements and group them — they move and re-time together as one block, and the whole group saves to the library for the next machine.
PDF & Excel exportsPrint-ready timeline PDFs, and Excel sheets with one cell per resolution unit — bindings and marks included. Excel export is a Full-license feature.
Installs & works offlineInstall it like a program from your browser. After the first visit it runs with no internet — projects live on your machine, not on a server.

Draw the cycle once. Every team builds from it.

A machine's cycle usually lives in the designer's head and gets re-explained at every hand-off — to controls, on the assembly floor, in the customer meeting. In Cyclogram the mechanical designer draws it once, and that one diagram is the sequence spec, the commissioning reference and the cycle-time promise — all reading from the same numbers. And unlike the Excel bar chart it replaces, one edit re-times the whole chain, so the diagram stays true as the design moves.

Mechanical designModel every station's actuators as they really move — stroke out, hold, stroke back — and bind the sequence: the gripper opens 0.2 s after the slide is home, the indexer waits for the ejector. When a stroke time changes, the chain re-times itself, so the diagram you hand over is still the design, not a snapshot from three revisions ago.
PLC & robot programmingAn exact sequence-and-timing spec instead of a verbal walkthrough: every movement's start, duration and ramps, and every dependency — clamp closes, drill advances 0.3 s later — printed as the handshake list it is. The Excel export lays the cycle out one cell per time step, ready to write the step chain against.
Assembly & commissioningThe intended motion on one printed page next to the machine. Dry-run the station against it, see exactly where the real cycle drifts from the plan, and tune movement by movement toward the diagram — instead of re-timing the machine from whoever remembers the design meeting.
Project management & salesA cycle-time promise you can defend: the chain of bindings shows exactly which movements the quoted time hangs on, and why it can't simply be shorter. When the customer asks for half a second less, the diagram answers which actuator has to get faster — and what that costs — before anyone commits.

Your machine designs never leave your computer

Not "encrypted in transit". Not "stored in a secure cloud". Cyclogram has nowhere to put your work but your own machine — and you can check that yourself in about thirty seconds.

Nothing to leakA cycle diagram tells a competitor how your machine works and how fast it runs. It is never uploaded, so there is no copy of it to breach, subpoena, or lose when a supplier changes hands.
Works where machines areFactory floors, customer sites and locked-down plant networks. After the first sign-in it runs with no connection at all — the file is already on the laptop, not behind a login screen that needs the internet.
Nothing to cancelYour projects are .mcyc files on your disk, in plain readable JSON. No subscription can strand them, no account can be closed with your work inside it, and there is no export you have to beg for.

Don't take our word for it. Open the app, press F12, and watch the Network tab while you draw. You will see no request carrying your project — because there is no code in Cyclogram that sends one.

How it works — in 27 seconds

Seven steps from empty lanes to knowing exactly which movement limits your cycle.

Prefer hands-on? The app opens with an interactive guided tour that drives itself and explains every step — try it now.

Size the axis before you draw it

Free calculators for the numbers behind every bar: the motion profile, the mechanism — ball screw, belt, rack and pinion, rotary table or pneumatic cylinder — the motor with its margins, the braking energy. No sign-up — and the result lands on your cyclogram as a bar.

Axis and motor sizing calculator Ball screw motor sizing Belt drive motor sizing Rack and pinion motor sizing Rotary table motor sizing Pneumatic cylinder stroke time Move time and motion profile Servo motor sizing Stepper motor sizing Inertia ratio Brake resistor sizing Ball screw critical speed

Read more: How to draw a cyclogram · A drilling station, step by step · The sizing glossary

Simple licensing, checked offline

A license is a small file — no account, no license server, no phoning home. Import it once and the app is yours, even with no internet.

FREE

Free

every feature, sized for one small station
  • Full editing — nothing held back
  • Up to 2 actuators and 6 tasks
  • PDF export (watermarked)
  • View ANY project file, no limits
  • Sign in with an e-mail — no card, no license file
Start now — it's free
FULL

Full license

for daily machine design
€289 / year
Your first month is free — every new account starts with a one-month Full license
  • Unlimited actuators and tasks
  • Excel export + clean, watermark-free PDF
  • Works offline forever
  • First month free with every new account
  • Renewals are just a new file
Start your free month 🛒 Buy a license
COMING SOON
ENTERPRISE

Enterprise

for whole machine lines
  • Everything in Full
  • Multi-station projects on one shared cycle
  • Actuator utilization analysis (%)
  • Multi-user collaboration
  • Version control for projects
  • Reject-rate simulation
  • Priority support
Contact us

Can't decide yet? No rush.

Keep up with Cyclogram instead — new features, real cyclogram walk-throughs, and release news, straight to your inbox. No spam, and one click unsubscribes.

Free Full Enterprise*
Actuators per project2UnlimitedUnlimited
Tasks per project6UnlimitedUnlimited
Movements with ramps, bindings, wrap✓✓✓
Marks & ruler✓✓✓
Library & compare view✓✓✓
Open & view any project file✓✓✓
PDF exportWatermarked✓ clean✓ clean
Excel export—✓✓
Works fully offline, installable✓✓✓
Multi-station projects, shared cycle——✓
Actuator utilization analysis——✓
Multi-user collaboration——✓
Version control for projects——✓
Reject-rate simulation——✓
LicenseNone needed (free account)License fileComing soon

* Enterprise is in development — contact us above and we'll keep you posted.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cyclogram really free?

Yes. The free edition has every editing feature — ramps, bindings, wrap, marks, library, compare — limited to 2 actuators and 6 tasks per project, and it exports a watermarked PDF. That covers a lot of real sub-mechanisms. A Full license lifts the limits, drops the watermark, and adds Excel export — and every new account gets its first month of it free. It is an annual license, not a hostage situation — if it lapses, the app drops back to Free and every project still opens.

Where are my projects stored? Can you see my machine designs?

On your computer, in your browser's own storage — and no, we cannot see them. Projects are never uploaded; the server only knows your e-mail address so you can sign in. Use File → Save to keep .mcyc files as your own backups. Details on the Security & privacy page.

Does it work offline?

Yes. After your first sign-in, Cyclogram works with no connection at all — on a plane, in a factory hall, behind a strict firewall. You can also install it as an app (your browser offers this in the address bar) so it opens from your taskbar like any desktop program.

How do I get a Full license, and what does it cost?

Every new account starts with a free month of Full: the license is set up the moment you sign up, and the file arrives by e-mail too — nothing to request. After that a Full license is €289 / year: in the app, open 🔑 License → Buy a license (order it yourself, or hand the ready-written request to purchasing), or e-mail [email protected]. An invoice and the license file come back by e-mail. The license is a small file you drop into the app once (🔑 License) — it works offline, no activation server involved.

What happens when a trial or license expires?

Your work is never taken away. The app simply falls back to the free edition: every project still opens, views and exports, and you can keep editing anything that fits the free limits. A project bigger than those limits becomes read-only until it fits again — nothing is deleted, and importing a licence opens it whole. PDF export gains the watermark again and Excel export turns off. Your data always stays yours.

Can I use the free edition at work, commercially?

Yes — the free edition may be used commercially, without any time limit.

Which browsers are supported?

Any current Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari on Windows, macOS or Linux. There is nothing to install for IT to approve — it is a website, and your data never leaves the machine it runs on.

Is Cyclogram only for machine builders?

No — it times any process that needs scheduling. Machine cycles are where it was born, but the same lanes and bindings work for an embedded system's start-up sequence, a chemical plant's batch steps, or a brew day in beer production. That is exactly why the timeline scale is flexible: the grid adjusts from tenths of a second up to a full hour, so you set the resolution to match your process — and if yours runs on a different scale entirely, read the axis in whatever unit you like; the maths is the same.

Why not just draw cycle diagrams in Excel?

Excel can draw bars, but it cannot bind a follower's start to its anchor's end, keep ramp overlaps legal while you drag, wrap a chain at the cycle time, or show the chain that decides your machine's speed. Cyclogram does all of that live, while you drag — that is the whole point.

Which “cyclogram” is this, and what else is the chart called?

The machine-design one: the chart of one machine cycle, with time along the bottom, one lane per actuator and one bar per movement. Not the biomechanics cyclogram (one joint angle plotted against another), not CycloGraph (a road-gradient app for cyclists), not a cycle-tracking app. The same chart goes by timing chart, machine cycle chart, cycle diagram or motion diagram in English; Zyklogramm, Funktionsdiagramm or Weg-Zeit-Diagramm in German; cyclogramme or chronogramme in French; ciclograma in Spanish; ciklogram in Slovenian; циклограмма in Russian; 工作循环图 in Chinese; and サイクル線図 in Japanese.