Helical question

[ArtF]

>>If you make a hundred really thin, identical spur gears and make two stacks of fifty, you can mesh them and arrange them to look like helical gears, or herringbo ne gears, or pretty much any weird thing you want. They will "work".

  I second that, its basically what GM does. The spurs that you stack are not normal spurs though, they have been changed to be larger
so the profile is correct as a spur when viewed from the helical angle. In other words for normal helicals you can run a standard same module
spur gear on them turned to the helical angle.

  After checking a few documents, I am pretty sure the twist must exist to be a proper conventional mesh, but it IS possible for a conjugate
type of mesh if some process were applied to do a radius based correction to get rid of twist. Id be interested if you find any information
on such a process.


Art

[JustinO]

Is the idea of these "untwisted tooth" gears to cut a "helical" gear without coordinated motions? Just a simple linear pass across a stationary blank?

My hand is on the trap door lever...

[ArtF]

Im not so sure youd get anything that way.. It'd take at least 3 axis working in coordination to cut that pass, a linear
pass would leave different root depths across the face.

Art

[JustinO]

So what is their attraction?

Talking about these gears, my mind kept drifting off thinking about generating hyperboloidal gears...

[ArtF]

Id have to think their a mathematical curiosity only..

Art

[Steve West]

Thanks for the answers,
on looking again more closely could not find my "imagined" gears,

But interesting to think that with the advances in 3D printing, many things
that we accept as standards, partly came about due to manufacturing limitations,
and now we need to go back and reinvent.

[ArtF]

Steve:

  Always worth thinking about, and I do all the time. In this case though, Im pretty sure the math
ensures the anti-twist helical isnt really a gear..more a graphic design. :)
  It IS good to always consider such things though, its where innovation comes from..

Art