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The advent of readily available CNC manufacturing has made creating your own custom gears out of plastic relatively easy. However, if you prefer to use metal or other CNC-cut materials for your application, then this gear cutting machine from Mr Innovative could be an excellent option. Besides allowing the use of metals, it also manufactures gears extremely fast, likely having an entire gear done before you’d be able to put the first layer down on a 3D printer. Brass Cnc Machining Parts
The design boils down to a two-axis CNC system, with a DC motor that spins a custom-cut blade. A geared stepper motor and rails setup acts as a linear x-axis, and moves the gear-in-progress workpiece into and out of cutting position. A second stepper motor holds the workpiece via a coupler, and rotates the gear to produce the number of teeth required.
The unit is controlled by a compact multi-purpose PCB based on an ATmega328P-AU. This drives the cutting DC motor via a TC1508S chip, and the two stepper motors through plug-in A4988 boards. User interface is accomplished using a touchscreen, which enables Mr Innovative to input the number of gear teeth.
The actual gear shape is dictated by the cutting bit, which would serve as another user variable that can be (mechanically) customized. This machine could be excellent inspiration for other custom CNC devices, and more details are available in the build video and its description.
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