When it comes to a steel-gear mesh, there are several common standards and design rules on how to reduce noise emissions in the mesh. But if plastic gears are involved, this is no longer the case. The topic of this presentation is to highlight some of the differences between metal-and-plastic gear meshes, i.e. which design strategies can be stated as valid for metal as well as plastic and which are not?

Microgears for some types of medical technology need to be inexpensively mass produced. But at the same time, they need to be both precise and reliable, even though their design lifetime is relatively short. Here's how microgears were developed for blood glucose measuring devices, insulin pumps for diabetics and other very small devices.

The first thing you see when you walk into Winzeler Gear is a pretty face. No, scratch that — the face is beautiful. Streamlined with chiseled cheek bones, delicate yet bold and strong, a half dozen photos of the feminine face line the building’s entranceway, enclosed tastefully in simple black picture frames, beckoning you to come further in with its pleasant warmth, repelling you to turn and leave with its foreign presence in such a location.

Regarding 3-D printing of gears and machine tools, etc. — does plastic gearing have a future in 3-D printing/additive manufacturing?

Wear is a very important topic for dry running plastic gears. Over the past few years, the authors have worked closely with a number of manufacturers of plastic gears to investigate the problems of gear wear in detail. Together they have developed a calculation method that can be used to predict where and when local wear will occur on a tooth flank. Their findings have also just been published in the final version of VDI 2736.

Some gear geometries are more practical to produce than others. Since choices made early in the design process aff ect the ease and cost of fabrication, those who design gears would do well to consider molding and how molders operate, especially when they create precision gears.