Bevel gear modeling

[smtc09]

Hey All,

I read through all the responses and still have a few questions. I plan to cut a rather large bevel gear on a 3-axis vertical mill, with the gear blank resting on an indexing table that on a angled wedge to the machine table. I plan to use an special made endmill to cut out material and leave the desired profile. As I understand bevel gears, the tooth profile is perpendicular to the surface of the gear, and tapers down in size for the outside of the gear to the inside. I am starting to work on the MasterCam for the program and could use some advise. Is there any circular interpolation involved? Anyone of experience cutting bevel gears with endmills? Thanks,

[Steve Hattori]

Chao, if the customer cannot give you a model of the gear, reverse-engineering it from the master is your best bet. You should be able to just do one tooth, then rotate-copy for however many teeth it has. Then you can generate edge curves around the teeth to get a continuous contour for the chamfer.

Or, if you are cutting it on rotary 4th, just do 1 tooth and transform-rotate the toolpath to go all the way around.

If its for Gleason, good chance it is a hypoid rear-end gear for a car.

[bigjohn]

Chao. Why are you yelling, mate.

[John Summers]

This is for smtc09. For straight bevel gears, the end tooth form is close to a spur gear tooth form, but not exact, I think. Anyway, all the tooth elements (straight lines) converge at a point, so a fixed tilt on the table isn't going to help that much. I would choose the profile to be perpendicular to the pitch line.

[beck250]

We use camnetics geartrax software for gear design its a add on for soldworks and inventor.

[Bruce Caulley]

This is a five year old thread.....