ok so at the end of each years season we ask the students what went good and what we could do better on. this year one of the things that they want to do better on is to use CAD software to help in the design and testing of the robot, not just as a way of getting a general layout of shapes, or CAMing out the few parts we do have machined.
for the past few years we have used the included mastercam Gear dll to make easy gears for the mill( it comes up with a wizard we fill in teeth and pitch and presto a gear). what I was wondering is how to make those gears in solid works, exactly as they appear in masterCAM.
if yall could steer me in the direction of a tutorial or a walk through that would help out alot.
I say solidworks because the team has a boat load of full licenses
I’m not very familiar with mastercam, but here’s some ways to make gears in solidworks:
If your version of solidworks includes the solidworks toolbox, you can do it directly in there. Make sure you have the toolbox enabled (Tools>Add-Ins). Then, click on the tab in the right column that looks like a bar graph. Navigate to Gears (Toolbox>Ansi Inch>Power Transmission>Gears) and select the type you want. Drag it into your model and a configuration table will appear in the left column where you can configure the pitch, # of teeth, etc)
If you do not have the toolbox, you could use Design Table Parts. Attached are two that I put together a while ago. (Here’s the hex one on 3dContent Central if you need a version for Solidworks 2007 or earlier) One has a hex broach and the other a keyway broach. You just open it up in solidworks and go to the “configurations” tab in the left column. Right click “Design Table” and open it. You can change the various properties (pitch diameter, # of teeth, bore size, etc) from there.
Keep in mind that for the purpose of general designing, it is often better just to extrude/revolve a disk of the pitch diameter in place of the gear. It is easier on your system resources and allows you to look at the model and make sure all your gears are tangent.
If you have Machinery’s Handbook, you can sketch the profile of a single tooth on a sketch. Then you can use equations (for # of teeth, pitch, and pressure degree angle), and dynamically link those equations to key features in the tooth profile that would get modified by a change in teeth, pitch, or pressure degree angle. By simply changing the data in the equations and hitting Rebuild, you can have any spur gear in the world.
In April 2009, “Mastercam® for SolidWorks” established an even stronger relationship between the CAD model and the machined part. Now you can program parts directly in SolidWorks, using toolpaths and machining strategies preferred the most by shops around the world. The Core of Your Machining Needs Mastercam for SolidWorks includes a suite of the most sought-after cutting strategies, including High Speed Machining (HSM) toolpaths. In addition, Mastercam for SolidWorks delivers a powerful set of automated toolpaths that get parts off the machine faster, with little or no handwork. You should contact your Mastercam rep for more details. Marie
Yes, but it’s not simply MasterCAM inside Solidworks. It is a stripped down version of MasterCAM created explicitly for Solidworks. It does not have all the toolpaths and other features that a standalone license of MasterCAM contains.
From talking to the MasterCAM people at Westec about it the last two years, it’s designed for people with minimal CAM experience who want to go straight from Solidworks to machined part with minimal input. Essentially it emphasizes convenience at the expense of customization.