I’m trying to learn how to create 3D gears any ideas ?
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Hi - we don’t have an official video on the topic, but this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES_Tqs1dZc4 has a great approach. Creating one teeth and after extrusion copying it (I would copy the 3D teeth itself, not the sketch, as less sketch is always better)
What is not mentioned is the exact technique for calculating and drawing that first tooth. The author of the video doesn’t mention it either.
I have done some research and it seems there are at least two well known approaches to spur gear drafting.
The approach the video seems to using is an approximation technique with circles explained here:
http://gearseds.com/files/Approx_method_draw_involute_tooth_rev2.pdf
There is another drafting technique which I understand comes from the famous Machinist Handbook and it summarized here:
http://www.cartertools.com/involute.html
From what I’ve understood so far the circle based approach is a rough approximation and may not work very well in very small or very large gears. The second approach, is adaptable to the gear size by using more or less of these tangent lines (depending on the size of the gear). Nevertheless, the second approach is much more tedious and time consuming.
With either approach you still need to calculate the gear first and then draw it. So you need to understand the basic theory of spur gear teeth design.
I hope this helps other people wondering how to draw gears with Shapr3D.
Lesson learned : no program will save you from knowing some of the theory behind what you are trying to make. Even with programs that have automated ways to create gears, you should still know the basic theory of what you’re drawing.