GearHeads Forum

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.

JamesTSG wrote: [spherical teeth] 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.

Maybe I don't understand what "spherical teeth" means.

I had mused on the idea of hinging involute bevel gears, and you can generate a tooth profile (as such) that uses sections of a cone of action that's centered on the axis of the hinge.  Then you can get circular contact "lines" over some range of angles though the self-overlapping nature of the double cone imposes some limits, and there's still a single point of contact at the focus.  The tooth profiles I generated with those assumptions don't look spherical at all, and you sacrifice the offset insensitivity that straight involute gears enjoy.

Sort of like rounded over peg gears?

JamesTSG wrote: Sort of like rounded over peg gears?

Dunno.  Here's an image of the model with top land, face and flanks.  I hadn't worked out the rest of the gear shape.

Uh... whut?

JamesTSG wrote: Uh... whut?

It's basically only showing the meshing part of the gear.  Maybe this will clarify it.

Does make it clearer.... couldnt quite see the mesh till then..

Art