"How long will my printed gear last?" New igus online tool predicts lifetime

Free online expert tool offers concrete statements on life expectancy of wear-resistant 3D manufactured gears

How long will my printed gear last? To answer this question, igus has now developed the gear life calculator for its 3D printed gears, made through laser sintering of the high-performance plastic iglidur I3. With the new online tool, the user gets a concrete statement within seconds about the lifetime of the wear-resistant component.

In some gearboxes, gears are used to change torque or shift through one or more phases. Because gears with complex helical teeth are often required which cannot be designed without tools, igus designed the gear configurator two years ago. This was expanded last year to include the ability to configure double gears. In just a few steps. The user only needs to enter the specifications of the desired gear, such as tooth module, number of teeth, width and inner diameter of the hole. This automatically displays a 3D model, which can be exported as a STEP file. By uploading the file to the igus 3D printing service (www.igus.nl/3Dprintservice), the configured gear made from the extremely wear-resistant laser sintering material iglidur I3 can be ordered directly from igus. To ensure that customers can also determine the service life of their wear-resistant gear, igus has now developed the gear life calculator. With this, the user receives a concrete statement about the lifetime and application limits of his gear pairing in just three steps.

Get the exact lifespan in just three steps.

In step 1, the user must first enter the number of teeth, the width of the tooth module of the gear-pairing again. Here the customer can choose between iglidur I3 gears, a metal or another plastic. In step 2, the tool asks for the speeds and torque of the large or small gear, depending on which gear values are available. Step 3 serves to determine work cycle of the printed gear, operating mode, ambient temperature and safety factor. Based on the specific parameters, the new online tool can determine the lifetime of the 3D printed gear in seconds. This makes maintenance predictable in advance.

Printed gears convince in turning test

The high-performance plastic iglidur I3 was specially developed for the production of wear-resistant components such as gears using the laser sintering process. The material is abrasion-resistant and has a long service life, as demonstrated by an experiment in the in-house laboratory with an area of 3,800 square meters. Here, a gear made of iglidur I3 competed with a POM injection-molded gear and a POM machined gear in a turning test at 1440°C at a speed of 0.1 m/s and a torque of 2.2 Nm. All gears had 30 teeth and a width of 16 mm. While the injection-molded POM gear failed after only 4,000 cycles and the machined POM gear after 12,500 cycles, the iglidur I3 gear withstood nearly 20,000 cycles.

The gear life calculator can be used for free at www.igus.nl/gear-expert.