3D Printed Straight Bevel Gears

[KMax]

A quick look at my first experience with Gearotic Thoughts and my 3D printer over this past weekend.

Basic straight tooth bevel gears were produced in the software.  These were exported (*.STL) to my CAD software which brings in a mesh of lines representing the triangle vertices'.  All of the vertices' were deleted except those defining one tooth.  A new tooth was then lofted and copied/rotated as needed.  The rest of the gear body was imported from a larger model and added to the new teeth which produced the first image below. (the larger gear is 72 teeth, 16-DP, O.D. 4.625-in while the smaller is 28 teeth, O.D. 1.875-in). 

In this project it was important to keep the center bore of the smaller (in this case the driven gear) open so that a large bundle of wires and air tubes can pass through.  To facilitate this, a pair of large diameter thin cross section bearings are used to mount the driven gear around its outside.



Off to the 3D printer and then a test fit onto the machined delrin support ring...



A quick check fit to check the mating with the driven gear propped up on an eraser...



Looking at the back side of the smaller bevel gear nestled in its bearing mounts...



A test mating with appropriate fabricated support components...



I couldn't be happier with how smoothly this assembly functions.  Thank you for the great first Gearotic experience.

[ArtF]

No, Thank you! for sharing that. Thats awesome!!!

  Ill be trying to make it so you dont have to jump so many hoops , the coming
development season will focus on allowing you to edit teeth and such in-program,
so while you may still have to jump some hoops to do such projects, Im going to
attempt to give you much more power to modify and move stuff about to more
closely match your visions.

Very sweet machine....

Art

[KMax]

The original design for this joint had been a cable pulley configuration that translated through the 90 degree turn.  Much earlier in the project I had already fabricated the large aluminum pulley for the horizontal axis.  After looking at what I had done above, and seeing the pulley frame sitting on the bench next to the mast, I realized there was a simpler way to implement this.  I went back to the CAD model and modified the larger get to produce just the section of gear teeth with some extra stiffening material below and added 3 attachment features to tie into the existing 6-hole bolt pattern on the pulley.  In the photo you can see the heads of 3x socket head cap screws that tie into this bolt hole pattern.

The first image below shows the output of that work.  The 'V' grove around the outside of the pulley to guide the cable is still visible.




Here is how it looks once it has been integrated, with the protective shrouds still removed...

[BobL]

KMax;

Awesome job, and thank you for sharing...Wow, very impressive..

Cheers
Bob

[KMax]

Bob,

That is just a small part of the project.  If you care to see, I have a 1-page photographic overview of the larger project.

http://nikita.argia.net/kmaxon/page/sojourner/001_set.htm

It is still a work in progress and since it is a hobby and I have to maintain a full time job, work progresses, typically an hour or two each day, but I try to keep it moving forward.

[Ken_Shea]

Whewee,
Not even in my dreams could that ever be completed in my life time.

That is some jaw dropping incredible work there KMax.

Once I looked at all the pictures it became quite clear and understood.
Then again... maybe not.


Ken

[ArtF]

I love your mechanics.. their truly artwork.

[KMax]

Glad you like it.  When I get to this point in the project and some larger sections of design, electronics, FPGAs, Software, mechanics and fabrication all start coming together it is pretty exciting and can keep one motivated to push forward against such a large hobby project.    :)

[ArtF]

I admire the dedication I know it takes to do such a machine.
You've done an outstanding job at it..looks like something made by Nasa..

Art