Page 121 - Gear Technology Solutions

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9.4 Coniflex Pro Differential Gear Technology

In contrast to older straight bevel gear systems, the pitch cones of both mating
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Coniflex Pro members roll on the generating gear plane as shown in Figure 7.
This was not possible in the past because the cutting tool had to be adjusted to
the root angle of the tapered depth teeth of the gears and due to mechanical
restrictions, the generating roll rotation was perpendicular to the root line of the cut
gear. Thus, the gears were generated on the root line rather than on the pitch line
[3]

Because free-form CNC gear manufacturing machines do not have a
mechanically present generating gear axis as on older mechanical machines,
the linear and rotational movements are transformed in a Cartesian coordinate
system to three linear and two to three rotational movements. Therefore, the
choice of adjusting the cutter to the root line of the cut pinion and gear and yet
performing a roll motion around a generating gear axis which is perpendicular
to the pitch line of the gear has become possible with electronically controlled
free form machines.

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Figure 7: Coniflex Pro pinion and gear rolling on the pitch plane

Figure 8 shows this setup with the example of a pinion cutting in a top view to
the generating coordinate system. The Z-axis and the X-axis (perpendicular to
the drawing plane) define the generating gear plane which is aligned with the
pinion pitch line. The cutter is positioned to be tangential to the pinion root line,
but the generating rotation of the cutter happens around the generating gear
axis. In this setup the intersection of the pinion axis and the generating gear
axis coincides exactly with the origin of the generating gear coordinate system.
This intersection is in the generating gear plane.

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