Millers, Software Enable Small-Scale Gear Production

Breton S.p.A. will exhibit its range of five-axis machining centers for small-scale gear production, using the company's Gear Suite CAD/CAM software. Intended as alternatives to hobbers for prototyping and small-scale production, the Ultrix and Xceeder series (with tilting rotary tables) as well as the Maxima and Titan series (with gantries and large-size rotary tables) suit gear applications using cylindrical, toric or spherical end mills for integrated turning, milling and tooth-cutting processes. The machines can handle pre- and post-treated gear sets, from 60-mm-diameter sets using face milling to 2,500-mm-diameter, one-piece gears using end mills.

The Gear Suite software includes Gear Design and Gear CAM, enabling the millers to cut gears. Gear Design enables 3D gear model generation from standard datasheets, tooth contact analysis (TCA), topological surface modification as well as fine-tuning of top land, flank and root. Gear CAM enables face milling.  Available in standard and multi-touch configurations, the software features geometry input from 3D gear models, an interactive wizard for tool selection/cutting strategies (for both traditional and face milling), tool path simulation, a tooth accuracy optimizer (TAO) and measurement grid analysis.

Combined with the Gear Suite, the company's five-axis millers provide flexibility in the design and manufacture of straight and helical gears, herringbone gears, bevel gears with straight-cut and spiral-cut teeth in the most common geometries, face gears for orthogonal transmission drives, skew-axis gears and worm gears.