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ON MANUFACTURING GEAR Inspecting Gears When it comes to producing gears, the name "Gleason" is pretty much synonymous with the undertaking, so it seems reasonable that the company would also know a thing or two about inspecting gears. The company has developed the 300GMSL Multi-Sensor Gear Inspection System that offers both contact and non-contact capabilities. That is, there is a tactile probe for inspecting spur and helical cylindri- cal gears, as well as straight, spiral and hypoid bevel gears with a diameter up to 300 mm. There is also a laser sensor that can scan tooth flanks (beneficial for gear development) with results that are comparable with tactile probing, but which can be obtained much more quickly. The speed of the non-contact scanning is such that the inspection system lends itself for rapid measurement of topography in production operations. Also, the laser scanning permits inspection of soft materials—like plastic gears—without damaging the surface. For production-specific applications, there is the 300GMSP Analytical Gear Inspection System, which is engineered to compensate for temperature changes and to dampen vibrations so that reliable results can be achieved, even under the environmental conditions of manufacturing operations. gleason.com A New Approach for Turning How clever is this? Sandvik Coromant has developed a cutting tool and tooling system that allows turning in all directions. So what this means is that the tool can enter the part—and one of the characteristics of the approach is a compar- atively small entering angle, which enhances tool life as it creates a thin, wide chip—near the chuck and machine back toward the end of the part and, with the same tool, machine from the end of the part in toward the chuck. Called "PrimeTurning," the process is predicated on specific inserts. The CoroTurn prime inserts have three edges per corner (one each for longitudinal, facing and profiling machining). There is the Prime A-type, which features three 35 degree corners and is designed for light roughing, finishing and profiling. There is the Prime B-type tool with strong corners designed for rough machining. Toolholders? There are 52 variants available. Explains Håkan Ericksson, Global Product Specialist at Sandvik Coromant, "Experienced operators know that a small entering angle allows for increased feed rates. However, in conventional turning, they are restricted to using Better Blowers Parts washing generally requires parts drying before subsequent applications. According to the people from Maxum, its laminar flow technology can provide benefits in terms of things like energy savings because whereas with conventional blow-off devices, the focused air begins to expand as soon as it leaves the nozzle, but with its converging and laminar flow approach, the air reaches the part in a more concentrated form, which results in faster, more-efficient drying. In addition to which, the company says that the internal air flow design of its "Maxumizer" blowers is such that it can require 30 to 50 percent less hp than competitive designs. And the company also deploys a drive system that's based on bearing cases located on each side of the drive pulley rather than the more-conventional belt-driven designs. This bridge-style drive system, according to company president and CEO Jim Freers, "provides properly positioned bearing load to reduce heat and dramatically extend service life." He suggests that the bearing life can be extended by 10 to 15 times that of older cantilever drives. maxumair.com entering angles of around 90 degrees to reach the shoulder and avoid the long, curved chips that a small entering angle characteristically delivers. PrimeTurning solves these problems by combining a perfect reach at the shoulder and the appli- cation of 25–30 degree entering angles with excellent chip control and maintained tolerances. This innovation presents countless possibilities to perform turning operations in much more efficient and productive ways. It's not just a new tool, it's a totally new way of turning." Because this is a different approach, Sandvik has also developed an accompanying code generator that provides the feedrates and entry radius parameters for the process and creates ISO codes that can be used with various CNC systems. sandvik.coromant.com 46