Common Gear Manufacturing Methods
1. Forming Method
This gear hobbing method falls under the forming category. During the hobbing process, the workpiece is mounted on the indexing head of the milling machine, and a disk-shaped (or finger-shaped) hob of a certain module is used to mill between the gear teeth. After completing the milling between one set of teeth, indexing is performed before milling the next set. Hobbing features include: simple equipment; low-cost tools; low production rate; and low precision in gear processing. The shape of the gear teeth depends on the size of the base circle (which is related to the number of teeth on the gear). The motion required for hobbing gears using the forming method is simple, and no special machine is needed, but indexing is necessary, resulting in a low production efficiency. This method is generally used for single-piece or small-batch production of low-precision gears.
2. Zhancheng Method
During gear processing with the involute generation method, the involute surface of the gear is formed using the involute generation method, which offers high production efficiency and precision. The majority of gear processing machines utilize the involute generation method.
1）Gear Hobbing The principle of gear hobbing simulates the rolling process of a pair of intersecting helical gears meshing. By reducing the number of teeth on one gear to one or several, and with a large helix angle, it becomes a worm. The worm gear is then grooved and back-fitted, transforming it into a gear cutting tool. As the machine tool rotates the cutting tool and workpiece in strict accordance with the transmission ratio of a pair of helical cylindrical gears, the cutting tool can continuously and continuously cut teeth on the workpiece. Helical Gear Features:a.Adaptive; b.High production efficiency.c.The surface roughness of the processed toothing is greater than that of the toothing processed by gear hobbing.d.Primarily used for processing straight, helical cylindrical gears and worm gears.
2）Not available in English translation. The hobbing machine is used for processing internal and external meshed cylindrical gears, particularly suitable for internal and multi-ported gears, which are unprocessable by gear cutters. With the addition of accessories, the hobbing machine can also process rack gears, but it cannot process worm gears.
3）Dental Floss Hobbing involves the driven rotation of a workpiece by a hob, simulating a double-sided, gapless meshing process with a pair of spiral gears, where the hob and workpiece axes intersect at a specific angle. Hobbing is commonly used for the precision finishing of unhardened cylindrical gears, offering high production efficiency and is one of the typical processing methods for soft gear surface finishing.
4）Honing teeth Honing is a precision finishing method for hardened gear surfaces, where the relative motion between the honing wheel and the workpiece is similar to that of剃齿. The difference lies in the honing wheel, which serves as the cutting tool, being made of plastic gears cast or hot-pressed with diamond abrasive material and binder such as epoxy resin.
5）Grinding teeth The primary characteristics of gear grinding are: high processing accuracy, which can reach a high degree of precision under normal conditions.IT4～6Due to the use of forced meshing, the machine not only has a strong ability to correct errors, but also can process gears with high surface hardness.
