4 ms·
I like this, but gears are hard, because they need to be hard (and reasonably precise). You can make toy gears with a 3D printer, but for any meaningful amount
by kingkongjaffa 6y ago
I like this, but gears are hard, because they need to be hard (and reasonably precise).
You can make toy gears with a 3D printer, but for any meaningful amount of torque transmission you need hard contact surfaces against each other which usually means metal, and forged, case-hardened metal.
If your contact surfaces are not perfectly in contact at all times (they never are) then you need something hard and also tough to absorb backlash in the geartrain.
- mikewarot 6y agoI made gears for 5 years, and did IT and electronics before that. The problem with making a gear (qty 1) is the setup. If you don't have 5 axis CNC and the right set of software and cutting tools, you're stuck with old machines that require a huge inventory of cutters, and setup times just for gear cutting in the order of half a day's work... for a single part. Once you cut the part, then you send it off to hardening, get it back and then grind it to final dimensions, for a really, really good gear. I want to make it possible for a job shop, or someone in their garage, to be able to turn out any given spur, helical, or bevel gear. I believe the low cost CNC controllers and open source software can be leveraged to make a machine to do this for less than $1000. Hardening is outside the scope of the project, but grinding is just cutting by different means, and should also be possible.