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Plastic
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Mar 10, 2022
We have a small machine shop in New Jersey. We recently purchased a 5 Axis Mill, Matsura, that we intend to do gear profiling on but we aren't quite sure of what program of CAD/CAM Software to buy that could do gears. Bear in mind we want to expand our business in Helical Bevel gears and probably impellers. We have knowledge with MasterCam but is there something better?
 
We have a small machine shop in New Jersey. We recently purchased a 5 Axis Mill, Matsura, that we intend to do gear profiling on but we aren't quite sure of what program of CAD/CAM Software to buy that could do gears. Bear in mind we want to expand our business in Helical Bevel gears and probably impellers. We have knowledge with MasterCam but is there something better?
Are you insane or is this a spam post ? We are supposed to believe that you went out and spent several hundred thousand dollars without checking to see if the machine would do your work ? You don't even know the name of what you claim to be making ? You haven't got a clue but we're supposed to believe you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend ?

DMG is already doing this and has been for several years. Mastercam, you've gotta be joking. Give back the Matsuura you supposedly bought and pick up a product from a company that can do what you want. That is, if you actually exist.

Anyone that wants to do impellers goes to NCL. Mastercam, right.
 
EmanuelGoldstein thanks anyway for the reply, sounded a little harsh, but I'll get through it.
 
We have a small machine shop in New Jersey. We recently purchased a 5 Axis Mill, Matsura, that we intend to do gear profiling on but we aren't quite sure of what program of CAD/CAM Software to buy that could do gears. Bear in mind we want to expand our business in Helical Bevel gears and probably impellers. We have knowledge with MasterCam but is there something better?
Hi
My name is Bruce and I'm a tool maker/process engineer
Open Massachusetts if you'd like to contact me I'm sure I could help you with your gears had quite a bit of experience with it just let me know
B r j d m a c h [email protected]
Good luck to you
Bruce
 
He didn't say it was a new Matsuura. Maybe they paid scrap value for a 30 year old machine and want to try to make parts. Or someone misplaced the decimal in approving a budget, IDK.
 
EmanuelGoldstein thanks anyway for the reply, sounded a little harsh, but I'll get through it.
Nevermind him, he's got a stick up his ass about Mastercam and goes into a rage whenever anyone mentions it. edit: wrong person.
Can Mastercam do it, yes of course. Is it the best for gears? No clue as I don't make gear teeth or impellers.
 
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Nevermind him, he's got a stick up his ass about Mastercam and goes into a rage whenever anyone mentions it.

I guess you figure that when people are not around, you can just lie through your teeth with impunity ? Because this is totally untrue. I have no opinion on Mastercam and haven't said doodly-squat about it over the years.

Can Mastercam do it, yes of course.

'Of course' ? Okay, bunky, here ya go. You have an hour.

Bevel teeth are tapered in form, smaller at the inside and bigger at the outside. The face is a curve defined from a mathematical equation. Draw the two involute curves and connect them with a ruled surface, fine. Mastercam should be able to do this, altho I'm betting it won't be fun.

Except there's still the roots - those are a trochoid. Equations are here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trochoid

or more accurately, because of the path of the cutting tools, here


Roots are just as important as teeth, because that's what determines the fatigue strength. After people pay a bunch of money, they want to be sure the part won't fail after ten revolutions.

Now, spirals ... arc that ruled surface ... is that possible ? I don't know. Each arc as you go up the face is going to be a different radius, because of its position on the tooth.

Then take the planes that your arced teeth are centered on and kick them over 30* off-axis. Maybe need to redo all your math ? Again, I dunno but seems likely.

Not uncommonly the two sides of the tooth are different. That's why on a Gleason it's common to have separate cutters for the drive and coast sides. Better model each side separately.

Now that you have this all drawn up, let's don't forget modified roll. This is where the cutter is kicked in a tiny bit at the ends of travel, so the teeth are thinner at the ends than the middle. This makes the initial contact patch in the center of the teeth, spreading out to the ends as the load increases. End contact is not a good thing, it makes teeth break. Here's some help with that



So, knock yourself out with your Mastercam. I'm sure it will be simple and fun. And no, you don't get to cut corners. People pay big money for this stuff, they expect it to work.

Deckel got into this because there are four (4) large Gleasons in the entire world. For doing large one-off stuff it makes sense. It's three-axis work, anyhow. What's complex is the shapes, not the machining. But unless you are really really brilliant, the Deckel software is what you want, not to spend a hundred and fifty hours struggling with mastercam before you give up.

There was also one guy who did the math to create models of spiral bevels. It's written in APL2. I do not know if it's accurate enough for machining, particularly the roots. But that would be the only other software I'm aware of that might be practical to use for this purpose.
 
We have a small machine shop in New Jersey. We recently purchased a 5 Axis Mill, Matsura, that we intend to do gear profiling on but we aren't quite sure of what program of CAD/CAM Software to buy that could do gears. Bear in mind we want to expand our business in Helical Bevel gears and probably impellers. We have knowledge with MasterCam but is there something better?
Gears can get very complicated very quickly. Mastercam probably isn't the software to use. Unless you are really interested in gears and interested in really learning about gears thinking you will simply find a piece of software to solve your problem is not the right idea. I wanted to make a replacement gear for as it happens a deckel FP2. I did not have a five axis machine but I did have use of an NX seat and some experience using this software which is more suited to the task. I spent some time, learnt quite a bit and gave up. Good luck!
 
I guess you figure that when people are not around, you can just lie through your teeth with impunity ? Because this is totally untrue. I have no opinion on Mastercam and haven't said doodly-squat about it over the years.

My apologies 100%!!
I got you mixed up with Empower.
 
I got you mixed up with Empower.

That's a hard one to do but in that case, sorry I yelled at you :D

I honestly don't have much opinion about Mastercam, except a friend bought Smurfcam instead, back in the Holy Wars days ... Surf does have a very cadkey-like look, which I like, but that's about it.

I'm a Pro/E guy, and wouldn't even try it in that. This is a case where it's easier to make the part than draw it accurately :(
 
That's a hard one to do but in that case, sorry I yelled at you :D

I honestly don't have much opinion about Mastercam, except a friend bought Smurfcam instead, back in the Holy Wars days ... Surf does have a very cadkey-like look, which I like, but that's about it.

I'm a Pro/E guy, and wouldn't even try it in that. This is a case where it's easier to make the part than draw it accurately :(

I've been running Smurfcam since the DOS days, probably about when Cadkey 3.51 was current.

The fact that Surfcam had a very Cadkey look was no coincidence. Apparntly they looked at all the current CAD packages and decided Cadkey had the best interface. (still does so many years later)

----------------------------------------------------------

I modelled a worm gear for a project, mainly because some SWX geniuses said it was too difficult. Did it in Cadkey and finished with NX.

Some time later I saw some worm gears in Delrin, asked who ran them, expecting them to say a vendor locally who I recomended, they said no, the Chinese made them on a 5-axis using your CAD model. Apparently it worked ok, what I drew up I never intended to be used. That it worked was probably entirely accidental.
 








 
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