Thought you might like to see what i have been playing with ?

[John S]

Art Fenerty, the writer of Mach3 has been writing a new program for cutting gears.
http://www.gearotic.com

I have been working with him sorting out the spur and helical gears side to it,

Where this program scores is that it can cut a gear with a normal off the shelf end mill, no special cutters needed.

These were cut using just a 3mm end mill.



Today, first paying job was to make this bent and broken pinion gear.




Into this.



Done with a 1.5mm cutter.

[Swarfing]

Nice work John...Makes me want to throw my dividing head away.

[ecat]

Very nice.
The gears in the 1st photo are the same ones from the youtube video? Mesmerising to watch :)

[GeorgeD]

I'm just wondering wouldthose slitting saw blades work with this? they go from 0.5 to 3mm wide and are cheap to buy.

[John S]

If they had side cutting teeth then yes they would work but it would have to be done on a CNC horizontal mill because the program works the offsets out in Y and A

To use a slitting saw on a vertical it would have to be rewritten to use Z and A

Another disadvantage is that because of the larger diameter it would not be possible to work up to a shoulder or larger gear, however this would be offset by the cutters being a lot stronger.


[Edit] another disavantage is that you wouldn't be able to do helicals