How do you make a wooden router lift?

Here’s a “neat” post for a Friday. I found a really interesting How-To guide on building a wooden router lift. An enterprising fellow up in Canada had some specific design constraints for building his router lift and he decided on using wood. You might be wondering at this point, how does this relate to gearing? Well, part of the router lift apparatus involves creating a crank, which calls for some gearing solution, which had to be made from wood, obviously.

The whole process (he’s provided step by step descriptions and photos) is really cool, but seeing how he fabricated the wooden gears is extremely interesting. You should check it out!

Gearp Application Chart

We stumbled upon a pretty basic--but definitely useful--gear application chart that helps you determine, depending on your application, which kind of gear you should use. Here's what it says under Bevel Gears,

Suitable for 1:1 and higher velocity ratios and for right-angle meshes (and other angles)...

Good choice for right-angle drive particularly low ratios. However, complicated tooth form and fabrication limits achievement or precision. Should be located at one of the less critical meshes of the train.

The entire chart is worth checking out. Even if presently, you only use one type of gear (a worm gear, say) it's good to know what other sorts of engineered solutions are out there.

Teaching Gears Young

There's a nice story out of the News-Gazette of Champaign, IL about youth education in engineering. The South View Middle School is stepping up its science-technical educational efforts and it seems to be a hit with the students. While students get to work in groups, brainstorm, and develop their math-science skills, they also engage in hands-on learning.

Eighth-graders Andrew Nelson and Joby Means, who have been studying mechanical gears and how they are used, build a bevel gear with materials from a kit.

"This was easy," Joby said, turning a crank to make the gears move. Soon, students will learn how to move the gears using a computer program.

Like Jelicia and Ashylee, Andrew said he didn't know whether he would like the pre-engineering activities, which he started in sixth grade. But Smith's classes quickly became his favorite, and he's looking forward to continuing them in high school and college.

Even if not every student--likely--in the program goes on to an engineering degree, the school is definitely planting the seeds for the engineers of tomorrow.

How To Make A Clock From Gears

Here's a fun video for a Friday! An engineer named Alan Parekh has uploaded to YouTube his method for creating a cool-looking clock out of CNC-cut gears. It's pretty impressive. I know I want one in my shop, now.

Via Crunch Gear

Gearbox Failure Common in Subaru Impreza WRX?

AutoSpeed has a really awesome breakdown of a widely known problem with the Subaru Impreza WRX and Liberty RS: Namely, that the five-speed manual gearbox is prone to failure. They note,

Keenly driven WRX/RSs with engine mods are likely to experience gearbox failure. This is largely due to the immense traction of the Subaru all-wheel-drive system, which (on a dry road) doesn't allow engine torque to be dissipated into wheelspin. Furthermore, those mechanically tweaked Subarus with an aftermarket (ie non-slipping) clutch will trap even larger stresses in the driveline. Without doubt, an up-rated clutch is a big contributing factor to gearbox problems.

They go on to note that the gearbox has a common point of failure; the teeth are stripped from the first and second drive gears. The article poses a few possible reasons for this failure, and suggest an aftermarket product, the Middleton Rally Team’s heavy-duty dog gearset. The only major downside to the MRT gearset is its noise-level, which is somewhat fierce.

Until a helical cut dog box comes along, we'd have to say that the MRT gearset is only for those drivers that like to play on weekends - there's no way you could put up with the noise of a dog box in an everyday vehicle. Motorsport - such as rally, circuit and drag racing - is this product's biggest outlet. Apparently 80% of MRT's present dog box sales are for rally cars - where, obviously, gearbox noise is of no importance.

The whole article is worth a read.

Bevel-Helical Gears Drive Huge Floating Conveyor In Hungary

At a mining plant in Hungary, SEW-Eurodrive has constructed a huge floating conveyor belt powered by parallel shaft helical and helical-bevel gear units. The plant floats on a lake in Hungary, about two hours from Budapest. It is over 200 meters long and descends to depths of up to 50 meters in the 40,000 square meter lake. The conveyor-plant apparatus transports gravel across eight stages to a nearby plant at a rate of up to 200 tons per hour.

Even though there is no ground beneath the conveyor, it is completely stable and rigid as it floats on pontoons. The bevel-helical gear-driven belts start and stop jerk-free with a 30% excess of power. The whole rig was completed after a very brief six-week construction period. It now supplies construction and filling material from the lake.

How do they make wind turbines?

There is a nice article in American Machinist this week about the production of wind turbines for wind-power machines. It goes into detail about all the work that goes into creating a wind machine, from fabrication to milling.

Many wind turbine component shops process such parts as gear case assemblies, planetary carriers and hubs on horizontal boring mills. These machines, with contouring heads and programmable boring bars, can reduce the number of tools, and tool changes, required to complete parts.

One tool can bore multiple diameters and produce complex part geometries. A contouring head combined with a programmable boring bar can perform as many as nine to ten different operations – atypical for a boring mill. Operations include threading, grooving, turning, contouring, taper turning and more, internally and externally, and rightangle heads and precision rotary tables add capabilities for five-sided part processing in single setups.

The whole article is worth checking out if you're interested in the process of industrial design, fabrication, and milling.