Sprocket and Bevel Gear Generators

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

Bevel gear and sprocket generators for Solidworks. Bevel gear generator uses the Gleason system, has true involute curves, and is capable of producing bevel gear sets for any shaft angle. To use edit the variables in the equation manager:


Sprocket Gen:

ChainNo: Either enter 25 or 35
N: Number of teeth
P: Pitch, replace equation with the "Pitch" value from chart in “chain data” sketch if not using #25 or #35 chain
Dr: Roller Diameter, replace equation with the following value from the chart: "Roller Diameter" if not using #25 or #35 chain
Thick: Thickness of the sprocket, replace equation with the following value from the chart: "Sprocke thickness" if not using #25 or #35 chain



Bevel Gear Gen:


ng: Number of teeth on the gear
np: Number of teeth on the pinion
dp: Diametrical pitch
a: Pressure angle (usually 14.5, 20, 22.5)
e: Shaft angle
w: Face width
c: Clearance constant, usually no need to edit,
addModify: Usually 0, modifies the addendum and dedendum of the gears. Useful when making small gears, and when the gears end in a point. This can also be used when trying to increase the strength of the teeth.
bg: Gear backlash
bp: Pinion backlash

Update Nov 2021 (V8):
- Added backlash as a input to the bevel gear generator

Note that while pretty robust, the bevel gear generator can and will break when pushed to extremes. It is usually possible to fix it by changing one of the following:
- Increasing domain of the involute curve to extend far enough - this happens when the involute curve is not generated far enough to cut out the tooth profile
- re-selecting the sketch region for the loft - this happens sometimes due to solidworks wonkiness
- increasing the value of D1@Pinion #2, or D2@Gear #2 - this fixes the issue where the tooth is not cut fully at the top

I can offer no guarantee that these are proper Involute bevel gears - but I think they are.

Sources:
https://www.sdp-si.com/resources/elements-of-metric-gear-technology/page4.php
http://www.gearseds.com/files/design_draw_sprocket_5.pdf
https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-042811-130543/unrestricted/Final_Report-Parametric_Design_of_a_Spiral_Gear_Process.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwWi_WDGcTU
https://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/Bevel-Gear-Calculator.phtml