Automated gear cutting setup on mill.

[darwenguy]

Hi guys thought some of you may be interested in this setup.
I have to make a number of small gears for some models i make. And cutting 80 teeth on the mill soon gets boring! so ive made this simple, as cheep as it comes setup all in for around £100.
Its produced around 100 gears now and still working great and saves me hours of hand crankin so im pretty please with it
Best if i showpics and explain each one.
This is the milling machine i use, but it could easily be fitted to others im sure.

The rotary indexer is made from the plans on this forum and realy its another subject on its own.
This is the motor gear box i use to power the traverse, its the generic ebay jobber about a tenner. A simple bracket was made from 3mm plate and a brass adaptor fitted onto the gearbox shaft.

This is were it fits to the mill with two small fixing screws. A plastic cap covers the lead screw end and is removed first.

The controller is just a electronic direction controller and an on/off switch. (About £3 online)
The unit simply swaps the direction of the current to reverse the motor when the switch is flipped on/off. The wires are easy to figure with just 8 wires into the unit... 2x motor voltage in, 2x voltage for switch, 2 for the remote switch and two output to the motor.

The switch is fitted to the mill just below the table and two adjustable stops are positiond to triger the switch.

The rotary indexer i made myself and added a remote push button switch connected to the right jog button on the unit. The switch is fitted to a bar that i clamp in a drill vice and just position it so the mill bed just presses the button at the end of its stroke.

A 12v laptop power unit supplies power to the drive.

With a bit of fiddling around with all the positions of switches and stops thats it.
The whole table drive can be made for under £30. Il try add a video of it running soon.
Best regards
Luke.

 

[kuhncw]

Darwenguy,

Nice setup and that takes a lot of work out of gear cutting. Thanks for posting.

I use a similar setup consisting of a CNC controlled Taig mill, stepper controlled Sherline rotary table, and a Sherline lathe headstock and motor adapted to the Taig mill. The stock Taig spindle does not have low enough rpm for gear cutting, so I use the Sherline. A few lines of G-code and that's it.

Chuck

 

[Brian Rupnow]

DarwenGuy----That is really slick!! I cut a lot of gears for various engines I design, and I know all about the cranking involved. Very good post.---Brian Rupnow

 

[awake]

Very nice! One important suggestion - it is best not to use milling cutters (including gear cutters) in a drill chuck. This is what collets and endmill holders are for.

 

[TSutrina]

Found this image on cutting gears by copying from a 3D printed gear. This gives a lot of freedom. Make your own cutter. Using the threading feature on a lathe to make a hob cutter using the same approach. However teeth can be cut to a high quality by moving the above cutter and pattern cutter linearly a small distance to remove the steps. Index the copy gear and the blank to cut the next tooth.