Aluminium Gears

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

That's the idea, but unfortunately we don't have any sponsors with a laser. The hope is to buy a bunch off the shelf and play with them.

I'm not sure if the Tetrix gearset is worth trying or not, I imagine they are probably pricy.

Get some sponsors then, google, phonebook, etc... It doesn't have to be laser either, could be waterjet.

The tetrix gears aren't really bad at all in price when compared to other 32DP aluminum gears. a 120 tooth for $30. Now that I know about it, we're certainly interested in doing a 32DP based gearbox for 500 sized motors as 32DP pinions are cheaply and easily available in varied sizes at EVERY hobby shop.

I think effective design and pocketing of existing steel gears would yield more bang for your buck than investigating aluminum gears.

You should also learn how to calculate gearstrengh using Lewis Bending Numbers, once you do it's trivial to determine if a gear will survive; no need to experiment to solve a problem that's been solved for a hundred years.