GF Gear Generator
Description
This is a minimalistic gear design application. As such, its designs are made following the metric module DIN standard series. Regardless, it is made for everyone, no matter your amount of knowledge or if you have an engineering background. It includes 11 different types of gears (7 standards, 2 non-standard and 2 experimental) for every project you might want to implement them in:
- Spur Gear.
- Simple/Double Helical Gear.
- 90° Bevel Gears.
- Gear Rack.
- Worm Gear Drive (helical and straight hobbed face).
- Standard Internal Spur Gear.
- Non-Standard Internal Spur Gear (tooth profile is inverted; it’s better for less trimming interference).
- Standard Internal Helical Gear.
- Non-Standard Internal Helical Gear (tooth profile is inverted; it’s better for less trimming interference).
- Profile Shifted Spur Gear (Experimental method).
- Profile Shifted Helical Gear (Experimental method).
Check out our FREE online gear designer STLGears.com
Contribute to this open source project @ Github/GF-Gear-Generator
Version 1.1.0 Changes include:
- English System now available.
- When creating gears, they are now placed into a new component.
- Normal method for helical gears is now supported.
- Normal method for helical racks is now supported.
- Screw gears are now possible.
- Profile shifting method was improved and resembles more closely the geometry produced by manufacturing.
- After creating a gear, key parameter values and selections are saved in the boxes for your convenience.
- Construction planes are hidden automatically when creating Double Helical Gears.
- Gears are no longer automatically created when clicking another command.
Patch 1.1.1 includes:
- Fixed rack generation error when default units are not mm.
- Bevel gears now show their apex construction point when created (by Mervill).
The two types considered non-standard were included for 3D printing since these designs of internal gears have proven to be practical when tight tolerances are a liability. Nonetheless, these designs are as useful as others.
Please note that the 2 profile shifting variants do not account for undercutting.
Hi, I have downloaded this and installed it, but I can't find it in Fusion. Can anyone help?
It's under the Design->Utilities menu as "GF GEAR GENERATOR"
The worm wheel and worm generation seem to be only partially usable.
The straight cut worm wheel appears to be wrong. The generated profile would not work.
For the approximation with the helical gear it seems to use the "wrong" reference system, which makes it incompatible with most gears.
Updated to the last version, all I get is this error message:
Failed:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/gerard/Library/Containers/com.autodesk.mas.fusion360/Data/Library/Application Support/Autodesk/ApplicationPlugins/GFGearGenerator.bundle/Contents/GFGearGenerator.py", line 2528, in notify
nuOfOps = design.timeline.count
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/Users/gerard/Library/Application Support/Autodesk/webdeploy/production/e379c5f768f16e4cbcd81b81fe59a8562f304f19/Autodesk Fusion 360.app/Contents/Api/Python/packages/adsk/fusion.py", line 62510, in _get_timeline
return _fusion.Design__get_timeline(self)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
RuntimeError: 3 : this is not a parametric design
Hi, this IS NOT an error inherent to Mac OS (Ican tell since I have a Mac M2 myself and I've made tests with it, as well asthe autodesk team on a Mac M3). What seems to be going on is that you have Capture Design History mode disabled, thus not allowing the app to work properly as it uses the timeline to hide bodies when creating new gears (to avoid interference and unwanted modifications to other bodies). Please enable the Capture Design History mode and update us. If you're still having issues, I'd be glad to personally walk you through them, just send an email over to gfsolucionesintegradas@gmail.com .
mate i cannot thankyou enough. I worked out how to do it manually.. but man for a quick project this made my life so much easier thankyou i sincerly appreciated it :)!!!!
Simple and powerfull !
Thanks for the good job
ich muste feststellen das die generiten stirnräder im durschmesser zu klein sind. es macht den eindrick der kopfdurschmesser entspricht dem wirklichem Teilkreisdurschmesser. :(
Easy to use and very handy, thanks!
Played around with it a bit and seems to work great. Various gear in one plug-in! Can't believe this is free!
Many options; does what it should
Just wondering if there is such a thing as a double helix rack to mate with a double helix gear?
so helpful tool! good luck to your impressive online stl version project and all the best to you!
BEST
I find this plugin very helpful and especially appreciate that it is free! One small issue I have noticed is that when I close Fusion 360 I always get an error message staying "plugin stopped" which prevents the program from closing until I have clicked "ok" on the message -- this can consumer memory and battery if you aren't looking out for it.
My suggestion is that in a multi-part assembly, it might be helpful to have the center geometry of the gear be more easily selectable for use with the move tool.
Overall though this is a great app and I appreciate the creators giving it to the community free of charge!
That "Stop Addin" message was removed in the las version's update, try and reinstall it to see if that changes :)
My plugin gave an error and created only the first turns on the gears. The plugin only works in Capture Design History mode!
This is a great plugin. Im making a lot of projects with gears. It would be just perfect if it had an option to generate globoidal worm gears, right now im generating a set of gears in blender and then using the mesh in fusion but its uncovinient and time consuming. Im creating the gears like shown in this tutorial http://www.otvinta.com/instantworm.html. Im sure the creator of this plugin could in some way translate the comands the otwinta site generates, or use them to create a new function in the plugin.
It works great.
I suggest to place the new gear inside the active component instead of the root component.
Can be installed
Summary: If you want a quick and easy way to generate 3D models of a wide variety of gears in Fusion360, this tool is great. If you plan to manufacture (e.g. 3D print, CNC, etc.) the gears for a physical object in real life, you should pick a different plugin (more on that below).
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Thank you to the GF Gear Generator team for providing this plugin! It's very gIt seems to work nicely for generating 3D models for a variety of gears, but for designing functional prototypes there are some improvements I would like to request.
+I wish the software would remember my last select parameters. If I'm making many spur gears that are a 1.0 module gear with 15 teeth, for example, each time I open the spur gear option, it resets to selecting "0.3 module" "17 teeth" by default. That makes it cumbersome, especially when quickly testing multiplel gears with small changes to test what works best.
+Every time you close Fusion360, a "stop addin" warning appears due to this plugin. This means it takes an extra delay and clicking to close Fusion360.
+When creating a worm gear, I like how a complementary spur gear is created to work with it. However, when they are generated, they are not automatically oriented such that they are meshed together. This means I have to take time to calculate and measure how and where to align them.
+Backlash and Clearance features are essential if trying to 3D p rint/manufacture the gears, so it would be great to have those. Actually without the Backlash feature, it's difficult to use this plugin in a practical setting.
+When creating a gear, all the sketches and bodies associated with the gear get dumped into the top level component of the fusion360 file. This gets messy because it clutters up the main component with dozens of sketches. It would be great if the plugin either automatically created a new component, or dumped all the sketches into whichever component I have selected. (I think the former option might be preferable because it makes the process a bit faster for users creating multiple gears).
+It would be great when selecting gear parameters, for the window to also show a preview of some of the other dimensions of the gear that will result. For example, in the Gear sample plugin that comes with Fusion360, when you select a Module of 0.5 and 20 teeth, it will tell you that the Pitch Diameter is going to be 10mm. It shows other resulting parameters as well, allowing one to quickly tweak the user-entered parameters and see what will happen, without needing to generate and then inspect the gear afterwards.
Sorry if my feedback sounds overly critical. I really like the numerous types of gears that are made available, and quite frankly making this plugin free is very generous of GF Soluciones Integradas.
Personally, I would prefer to have a full fledged gear plugin with the customizations and streamlined features required, and I would be happy to pay for it.
For example, I paid for the Shwivel Rack and Gear Maker plugin, and it has many customization parameters as well as a preview of what to expect before generating the gear.
I'd be happy to review the plugin again after a future update, and adjust my review accordingly.
Generally the app works well, but creating a helical spur gear generates erroneous results with the tip diameter and pitch diameter. Thankfully our gear manufacturer pointed this out before we went to fabrication!
Hello, as pointed out previouslly in the thread down bellow with user "Ewan Rothenwänder": There are two methods to create Helical gears: The normal method (https://khkgears.net/new/gear_knowledge/gear_technical_reference/calculation_gear_dimensions.html) and the radial method (https://khkgears.net/new/helical_gears.html). Essentially, the difference betweeen these two methods is that for one of them you would need "Special gear cutting or grinding machines are required for processing each helix angle" but you retain the same center distances and dimmensions as in spur gears (unfortunately for machining enthusiasts this is the disadvange of the method used by the GFGG). We understand the troubles this may have caused you, but this does'nt mean that the calculations are wrong; they're just different because of the method used ( search for transverse module https://qtcgears.com/tools/info/infohelical.php).
The gear is using aconstant pressure angle, which is fine when the gear thickness is small compare to worm drive diameter. If not, only a very small contact surface exists. Would be nice if this could be improved.
This is a great add-on but I would really like to see the following:
Not much to say. It makes gears. it works well. Lots of options to make the exact gear you need.
I actually used it for double helical gears and I am very impressed. The tool works quick and solid.
Another progression could be to automatically generate gear combinations like planetary gear sets with defined max or min diameter in total as well as transmission ratio and so :)
But as its free, it is already awesome like it is! Thanks.
its just perfect , thank you for this and making it free
muchas gracias por regalarnos el plugin, aun no lo uso pero yo se era genail.
Thank you very much for your gear generator. Used it to design a gear for my motorized slider project and it work fawlessy.
Very good program for creating all the gears necessary, if you only need the normal method instead of the radial method for helical gears!
Hello, I've made the gear as you said (m=2.3mm | z=24 | ha = 14deg) and found that it´s accurately designed. I've put time in reviewing the code and re-researching the gear theory on Shigley´s Mechanichal Engineering Desing and the DIN metric standard for gears and couldn't find anything that points out as to why it would be badly designed.I´ve sent to your email a PowerPoint that has all the math performed by the program and the images that represent it. Hopefully this will be of use for you.
For anyone reading this, as it turns out the GFGG designs helical gears following a stepped method as shown in https://khkgears.net/new/helical_gears.html , this type of gear retains the same dimmensions as the spur gear. However Ewan pointed out that there's another set of equations for helical gears as shown in https://khkgears.net/new/gear_knowledge/gear_technical_reference/calculation_gear_dimensions.html This doesn't mean the helical gears are wrong or don't work, they're just designed differently from what you may find in other apps. Currently the development of the GFGG is on hold in favor of a better design app, in that one we'll make support for both methods. Thanks.
Great plugin
Thank you so much!
Cool
The add-on works great but there is an alert or confirmation dialog that got forgotten when you quit Fusion that is quite annoying, if you could disable it, this would be perfect!
True, luckily it is easy to remove. In Tools / Scripts and add-ins / Add-ins - find and select the plug-in, select Edit and wait for the code editor to start. In the GFGearGenerator.py file, scroll all the way down and find the line ui.messageBox('Stop addin') and delete the line. This has no adverse side effects. Save the file, and enjoy not seeing the message again.
It would be nice if the gears were placed at there correct centers. I created a Rack with M=1 and a Spur with T=17 and M=1. The pitch of the gear (17) should line up with h/2 of the rack tooth to mesh correctly. However, the teeth clash. Is there any info on how you are caluclating the centers?
Thanks to the quick response the problem was solved, this is a assume tool.
Yeah the thing is that you´re using the wrong equation to line them up. I don´t know if your h/2 refers to the tooth height or the rack height so I´m going to tackle them both; if "h" refers to the rack´s height it's simple common math knowledge that if you change that height your equation will simply not work. If "h" refers to the tooth height, then no, "h/2" is not the right equation to use. You see the distance between the "pitch line" of the tooth and the tip is equal to the module (in your case 1mm) and the distance between the "pitch line" of the tooth and the bottom is 1.25*module. I´ve sent to your email a nice picture of a diagram. Now that we've set those things straight, the application does the parts for you according to the DIN metric standard, it does not handle the assembly of parts for you in that regard you must have the knowledge needed. The second thing you have to keep in mind is that F360 doesn´t support equation driven curves, so most probably you will have a little interference (that´s part of not using a software that has equation driven curves: precision) however it shouldnt be enough to "clash" as you said in your email. If you have any doubts or my explanation doesn't convince you, I can send you a drawing I made to to design the racks, if you want a reference then page 2149 of the Machinery´s Handbook 30th edition should be more than enough to illustrate. Please keep in mind this is a project I did in my spare time, so it will take time for me to implement assembly features.
Приветствую, не могу установить установку в программе, скачивается файл неизвестный и не видит его, помогите очень срочно сделать программу
Hi, please send an email to gfsolucionesintegradas@gmail.com so we can send you the files and the instructions ! Also, our response time is faster there.
It's pretty good, does what it says on the tin. One issue I have is I can't use a module of 0.75, is it easy to add more to the drop down list? Or perhap make it so I can set it manualy? Very good though!
It is fairly easy though you have to edit the plugin. Go to the addon page where you can enable/disable the GFGearGenerator. Select it. Stop it. Then click on edit. In line 7 of the code should be a list of all possible modules. Just add yours and you're good to go. Start the plugin again and you now can select whatever module you like.
Easy, simple interface. Doesn't make everything possible, but a lot more than I'd be able to do without it.
Good work!
I have noticed that this app won't let Fusion 360 shutdown without having to click a dialog to stop the add-in.
While not a show stopper it's really anoying.
Appart from that, I'm still getting used to it but looks great.
If anyone has issues getting the worm screw to line up nicely with the corresponding gear, the distance is: (module)*4.254mm and the offset is (module)*0.4mm.
It would be handy if the generator did this automatically, but it's a nice free tool regardless.
Tested with worm gears, it works. Thx.
Nice work!
I've played around with it a bit and it seems to work well.