GearHeads Corner

More fiddling...  I guess they don't need to be peg gears to work as 'straight sided bevels'.

Nete:

Much better, I think they have the benefit of running on a single line of contact.. and really at any
angle of bevel..

Art

ArtF wrote: Much better, I think they have the benefit of running on a single line of contact.. and really at any
angle of bevel..

The contact properties really aren't ideal, but I guess that's expected.  They are straight-sided though, so it should be possible to make a set on a CNC set up with an untapered end mill.

Nate:

Has me wondering if the perfect bevel isnt spherical teeth, any angle woudl have a single contact point... :)

Art

ArtF wrote: Has me wondering if the perfect bevel isnt spherical teeth, any angle would have a single contact point... :)

I'm not sure what you mean by "perfect bevel".  If you can mill profiles, proper involute bevels will be better for fixed angles because they have contact along a line.  If you want to 'act through a hinge' these pseudo-involutes should have a single contact point at any angle already.

I guess I should have said universal, if the teeth where spheres I figured they'd work at any angle or an angle thats varying, as you say..like a hinge.. But true, these shapes would also have a single contact point.

Art

As in literal points of contact that would be very small percentages of the entire surface area of the teeth. The material would have to be very hard faced and lightly loaded to be of practical use.

True, for some reason ball bearings came to mind.. but then everything I do tends to be very lightly loaded decorative type things. :)

Art

JamesTSG wrote: As in literal points of contact that would be very small percentages of the entire surface area of the teeth. The material would have to be very hard faced and lightly loaded to be of practical use.

Yeah, it's optimized for easy manfacture (laser cutter or straight mill) rather than good mechanical properties.

But OTOH, rounded tooth gears would tolerate a variable angle of rotation much better than conventional gears. I'm not sure why you would design a mechanism that needed to, but... there you go.

Yeah, thats what I meant by hinge effect.

Art

So will we be expecting to see the spherical tooth button after Auggie's development slows down?  Somewhere around 2018 or so?

An interesting option would be to include sockets, rather than actual teeth, might allow gluing actual ball bearings instead of depending on 3d printed spherical teeth.

Kirk

Kirk:

>>an interesting option would be to include sockets, rather than actual teeth, might allow gluing actual ball bearings instead of depending o

  Funny you say that, I kinda pictured a 3d printed disk with ball sockets in it to glue 1" ball bearings into when I commented
about the bearings.

>>Somewhere around 2018 or so?


Seriously, Augie WILL dominate my time for a bit, though I never stop working on bugs and other
idea's, just at a slower pace...  I never know the development path of Gearotic, since
the start I've kinda gone whatever direction my interests call for. When we started there were very
few resources to make gears, now days it seems every cam program is adding Gear wizards, so I figure
Ill mix it up a bit to keep it interesting, luckily GM encompasses a lot of things, so adding a controller to
the mix, ( thought I though it crazy at first), seems to be making more and more sense and may give
me the freedom to make wizards that may be added easier than they are in GM. By the time Auggie
is running my laser it will be in a spot where its users will hopefully do most of its development, or
at least thats the way Im developing it.

    Where its all heading I havent a clue, but Gearotic seems to be serving its purpose for
the moment, its users are generally happy, ( occasional bug aside), so Ill keep adding things, likely till
I cant type anymore,and see where the path leads. You will still see modules added to GM, or features
requested get done, though perhaps not at the speed they once were, at least until Auggie is running
and my laser is happy.  This will also give me a machine that will have a large enough 4th axis to
develop better 4th axis modules for gm. So feel free to keep suggesting, Im known for taking breaks
to develop what catches my imagination,its worked for me so far. :)

Some day Ill proudly proclaim that I have finished the internet,
publish all the source code, and pick up a good book. Someday.. Maybe..

Art


     

JamesTSG wrote: But OTOH, rounded tooth gears would tolerate a variable angle of rotation much better than conventional gears. I'm not sure why you would design a mechanism that needed to, but... there you go.

CV joints do something similar, and see a lot of use in cars.  They do require free balls rather than fixed ones.

I don't understand how 'spherical teeth' would provide an advantage if they're simply fixed teeth on a pair of gears.

Nate wrote: I don't understand how 'spherical teeth' would provide an advantage if they're simply fixed teeth on a pair of gears.

They have an undefined (but small) contact surface and engagement angle.  Conventional gearsets have a fixed angle relationship. Deviate by even a small amount from that and bad things happen (uneven wear which induces slop, hooking, broken teeth, etc.).  You would not use them on anything but a CV type joint/pivot.