I need to make a rack for a machine I am designing. We use a variation of this now but I need to change the rack we have always used. The rack is on a radius and the teeth are on the inside of said radius. I plan on using the same tooth profile that we are currently using but i was wondering if there was an easy way to pattern this. Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
A curved rack is a gear, in your case an internal gear. The teeth on a rack are trapizoids, on a gear they are somewhat more compicated.
Depending on your requirements the trapizoidal teeht might be acceptable. Without more information, we can't give any advice.
Thanks for your reply rdyson. I am attaching the "print" I am starting with. I don't know how much its going to change but I thought I would do a little prework before it gets dumped on my lap. The is attached to a base plate and then a Marin S312 drive gear on a gearbox moves the machine around a pivot.
thanks again
I might look at a Planetary gear assemby and only use a portion of the outer gear ring.
blair, could you elaborate a bit more.
thanks
A curved rack, rather than a linear rack could be described as a Planetary Gear set but with only a single spur gear and a ring gear. All you need is a portion of the ring gear. All the gear teeth profile data is easily accesable for these gear sets.
@CCrabtree1 wrote:i was wondering if there was an easy way to pattern this.
Circular Pattern feature?
I appreciate all your input guys. Let me respond to a couple of these: rdyson, the speed and cycles are non factors, the speed is very slow and the the cycle is only every so often when the operator makes the machine pivot so it could be once an hour or once a week, but either way not anything that could be considered a cycle and I can't really figure the torque right now without it being a guess becasue this machine is still in development. blair, great idea about finding the Planetary gear set but the problem I am having with that is I cannot find a set that even comes close to the parameters I know. JDMather, I would love to use the circular feature for this but as I stated in the answer to blair, this rack and pinion seems to be custom so finding just the right value to make everything come out right is eluding me. A straight rack is simple and is logical, the what seems to be a custom rack on a radius is making me crazy. Thanks again for all the help. I apoligize for my ignorance also 🙂 .
A good gear book or possibly the Machinist Handbook will provide the data required. I would model the single tooth profile on the curved rack at one end and then as JD mentioned, pattern it to create the remainder of the teeth.
Well I appreciate all the advise guys. I am attaching my finished product. I decieded to do it as an assembly just to make it easily adjustable if need be. It was a little time consuming but now if i need to change it or adapt it to another radius it will be rather easy. Thanks again.