Quote:
Originally Posted by Forhire
I'm going down the gear cutting rabbit hole... I've been watching some of the Sandvik InvoMilling videos. Cool stuff for sure! Here's a simple spur gear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDf0lEN3ekg
Poking around Sandvik's site I found the CoroMill 171 which can do "Gear module range: 0.8–3 mm (DP 31.750–8.467)"... which got me thinking about how cool would it be to do it all with one cutter.
Then I wondered about how to program it.
Sandvik had a link to Euklid GearCam. It looks cool and spendy. I'm sure the Coromill isn't cheap either.
http://www.euklid-cadcam.com/en/soft...vomilling.html
Then I happened across this video of Wilfried Smekens cutting gears with a slitting saw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI27vSoxCeo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWdBunio5aI
He posted his "Involute spur gear free gcode wizard using O codes" source in the comments of the first video. I assume it runs in LinuxCNC. I wonder if I can make it work with the Centroid? I'll have to study it some more.
Now I'm intrigued. I think we could do this. We have a 4th axis on the Centroid CNC at the school. This would be a perfect use in the fall. 
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I just finished giving you rep for the last post... time to find 10 more people to give rep to.

I saw the Sandvik gear cutters a long time ago, but I have never seen somebody cutting involutes with a slitting saw before! You would probably need a very small diameter saw to cut aluminum without too much chatter at a decent speed though.