Gears

Well today I started cutting gears. Simply put I cant afford to spend 200$ on a gear cutter, so I tryed with an 1/16" end mill. I used Inkscape and the upgraded gear package called "Gear Dev". The package that comes with inkscape, doesn't support a center shaft hole.

Once I created the gear, I saved it as a DXF and moved it in to cambam. Setup the cuts and cut it on my Sherline 5400 cnc Mill.

The first result I must have screwed up when resizeing. It ended up being oval (Big one on the bottom)??? The next two (small on the top) worked great. Still having that issue with burs though. When I resized the gears I had to bring it in to cambam, draw a 1/16" circle and resize until the 1/16" circle just barely fit between the teeth, this was my guide to make sure that my end mill would fit.

I have found the holes in the middle, although they make the gear lighter, make cutting the gear a PITA. So I am going to remove it from future designs, thought about perhaps just a pocket.

Improved plugin for InkScape: http://www.cnc-club.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=434#p2500

Another Good Resource: http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html

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