New Gleason SPHERIC® Power Honing Machine Finishes Hardened Cylindrrical Gears in Half the Time

Nov 25, 2009

Gleason has introduced a next-generation 150SPH Power Honing Machine that uses the latest Gleason patented Spheric® Honing process to finish hardened spur and helical gears up to 150 mm in diameter in as little as half the time required by existing machines.

The 150SPH is well-suited for production environments requiring higher volume finishing of high precision gears with low noise characteristics, of the type increasingly found in many of today’s transmission applications.   Equipped with a high speed direct-drive honing head,  the 150SPH is capable of honing at speeds almost twice as fast as commonly used in practice today.  It also employs Gleason’s patented Spheric® Honing process, a combination of Gleason proprietary software and powerful Siemens 840D CNC that enables the user to produce quieter gears faster by improving tooth geometry, reducing concentricity and indexing errors, and optimizing overall tooth flank contact characteristics.    

The Spheric® Honing process, first introduced for use by Gleason’s popular ZH 125 and ZH 250 honing machines, offers many additional benefits to the user.   For example, tooth trace and crowning modifications are generated by machine movements only, so no change is necessary to the dressing master when modifications are required or when changing over from one workpiece type to another, thus reducing tooling costs and non-productive changeover time.  When dressing is required, a patented process is used that can extend by as much as four times the useful life of the honing tool, resulting in significantly lower tooling costs per workpiece.    In addition, the process enhances the compressive stress in the surface of the tooth flanks to help prevent early wear and extend gear durability and useful life. 

The use of the latest Siemens 840D CNC and Gleason Windows® based Intelligent Dialogue software also greatly simplifies setup and operation.   For example, when flank form corrections are required after measurement, they can be made easily, and automatically by the machine, helping even less experienced operators to produce high quality parts more productively. 

Among the 150SPH’s many new standard features is a fully integrated, high-speed automatic loading system that cuts workpiece changeover by as much as 70% as compared to its predecessors.   In addition, the new loading system has been designed to make is easy to interface with the customer’s existing factory automation systems.

Gleason Corporation’s mission is to be The Total Gear Solutions Provider™ to its global customer base.  Gleason is a world leader in the development, manufacture and sale of gear production machinery and related equipment. The Company’s products are used by customers in automotive, truck, aircraft, agriculture, mining, windpower, construction, power tool and marine industries and by a diverse set of customers serving various industrial equipment markets. Gleason has manufacturing operations in Rochester, New York; Rockford, Illinois; Dayton, Ohio; Plymouth, England; Munich and Ludwigsburg, Germany; Studen, Switzerland; Bangalore; India, and Suzhou, China and has sales and service offices throughout the North and South America, Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region.

More information about Gleason Corporation is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.gleason.com.