Electronic Dividing Head - 4th Axis

[cfellows]

If you want to cut gears with a CNC machine you need gearotic.com This is a package written by Art Finerty after he retired from writing Mach3. It is amazing software- it lets you design gear trains of great complexity, including spur, bevel spiral, cyclodial and about any thing else you can imagine. Of course it generates gcode to directly cut the gears. Not only to cut with standard gear cutters, but using normal square end mills. The tooth profile is formed by a motion of the gear rotating and the Y axis moving. If you have a small enough cutter, or large enough gear it will generate the code to do a 2d profile cut.

It is really amazing software and fun to play with even if you never cut a gear.

I remember when Gearotic was first released and I was really excited about it. I'd love to give it a try, but, at $120, it'll have to wait... there are other, more pressing priorities for my hobby budget.

Chuck

 

[cfellows]

So, used my small 4th axis today to make a helical gear. I wrote the G-Code myself and it was surprisingly simple. Gotta say, I'm having way too much fun.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXIe-yX0MB4[/ame]

Here's a couple of pictures of finished gear.

And here's the G-Code for Zee (and others) to admire...

%
O0001 (MAIN PROGRAM)
(Initialization)
G01
#100 = 6 (Number of Divisions)
#101 = 0 (Initialize Tooth Number to 0)
(Main Program Loop)
M98 P0002 L#100 (CALL O0002, Loop once for each gear tooth)
M02 (Program Finished)
(Sub Program)
O0002 (SUB PROGRAM, Cuts Tooth, Increments Tooth Number)
# 101 = [#101 + 1] (Increment Tooth Counter by 1)
#33 = [#101 / #100] (Calculate tooth rotational position)
#34 = [#33 + .75] (Calculate rotation movement to cut tooth)
A [#33] (Rotate 4th Axis to next index position)
X0.35 a[#34] F4 (Cut the tooth while rotating the 4th Axis)
X0 a[#33] F8 (Return X & 4th Axis to Home Position)
M99 (Exit the SUB PROGRAM)
%

Hmmmm, had those comments all lined up when I composed the message... :thinking:

Chuck