Looking for gear design program

[daniel]

Does anyone know of any free gear design programs? All I need is something basic. Maybe input the diameter of the two gears I want to mesh together, input the distance between gear centers, and then have the program output a dxf file?

[myxpykalix]

Have you tried http://www.emachineshop.com/

[daniel]

It didn't appear that emachineshop had any extra functions to help me. I already have cad programs.

The problem I am experincing lies in designing the gears so they mesh well and dont bind, rather then drawing them.

Thanks for any suggestions

[fleinbach]

Daniel,

This says it's free but you need to register to use it. http://www.ufeinc.com/gear_design/gear_design.html

[daniel]

Thanks Frank, I think I was looking for something that would produce a dxf file, but I've had no luck with that.

However I think I have found a temporary solution, I found some old dxf plans for a wooden geared clock. It seems that it might be possible to scale them up to the size I need and go from there.

Although the best solution I guess is for me to get a engineering text book and learn gear design, the quickest solution is scale the gears I've found up, and then control the speed of the motor turning the pinion gear in order to spin the larger gear at the desired rate. Thank God that what I'm building is lightweight and I don't have to worry to much about torque and strength.

[kirkkelsey]

Try: http://hobbing.com/cadlib/ for gear design software with DXF output.

[bill.young]

Hey Daniel,

Unfortunately this prints a paper pattern instead of outputting a dxf file, but it's still pretty neat.

http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html

Bill

[daniel]

Thanks again guys,

Hey Kirk, I did try that site earlier, I downloaded the software, but it doesnt seem to run in windows xp as they suggest. It runs for a breif second and gives you the text files they mention, but it seems to crash or terminate half way through before it outputs the dxf file. I will try and figure out a solution or contact them because if it does work it seems like a really cool resource to have.