Which 3D Printed Gear is Best?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 พ.ค. 2024
- 3D Printing is incredible, but can you use it to make functional gears and mechanical parts? In this video I test #3DPrinted gears to destruction to find out which filament is best.
Join the Maker's Muse Community - www.makersmuse.com/maker-s-mu...
Tested filaments and suppliers:
eSun PLA+ , PLA-ST and BASF Ultrafuse PLA Pro 1 - www.cubictech.com.au/
Monocure PETG - monocure3d.com.au/
Fiberlogy - fiberlogy.com/en/fiberlogy-fi...
Polyalchemy Elixir PLA - www.polyalchemy.com/
Compositum ABS ST - www.corotechnology.com/englis...
Grab a torque wrench! amzn.to/3reUPOS
TIMESTAMPS:
Intro: 0:00
PLA: 3:49
ABS: 9:15
PETG/PCTG: 10:39
PA/Nylon: 12:32
Conclusion and future testing: 15:2
50 3D Printing Tips and Tricks - gumroad.com/l/QWAh
3D Printing Essentials - www.amazon.com/shop/makersmuse - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Late to the party, but as an engineer, I feel the need to comment. Gears need 100% infill. Yes, in general, material stresses run higher on the surface, but effectively having a hollow part creates surfaces on the inside as well. The sharp inside corner that the slicer will leave under each tooth combined with the inside corner created by the inside surface of the face will create sharp junction of three surfaces on the inside. This will be a huge stress concentrator. If you watch carefully, this is the first point where the plastic turns white. (Crazing) The second place is the root fillet of the tooth. This stress concentration is inherent in any gear tooth. Try again with 100% infill. Also try setting the top/bottom surface thickness to the full thickness of the gear. I would expect that the diagonalized print lines of the top/bottom layer will act to brace the teeth. Also, I would experiment with the shell thickness. I would expect that would allow the diagonal lines to extend into the tooth somewhat, preventing the delamination/crazing at the root of the tooth. Interesting, but the 20% infill is definitely more of a problem than the material.
My initial thought when seeing a gear sear.. they weren't solid.
Followup: Would it be possible to fill the hollow parts with sand/water?
@@EnjoyCocaColaLight Probably wouldn't do much. Sand/Water would fill the space and prevent volumetric compression, (look up poissan's ratio) but wouldn't help much with linear compression and shear.
I also want to see him try with smaller and larger gears, to see if the failure moves around and/or if the force at a location is the determining factor.
Так он же сравнительный тест делал. Шестерню хреново наслайсил, да. За то у всех пластиков одинаковые условия.
Ну и так, чисто придраться - силовые шестерни делают под шпонку, а не под шестигранник - так удобнее упираться.
I have a story for you...
Several years back I went on a tour at a local industry location that creates thread and string. They have a set of all-mechanical machines created about 100 years ago. They are not electronic at all. They all have precision custom parts made of metal except for one essential gear that is made of wood. This was deliberate so that the wooden gear would wear down and break before damaging the other parts. This thin gear is cheap and easy to replace by stamping out a new gear from a thin wooden board. Nobody knows who built the machine but the design is very smart. Take inspiration from it.
That's very clever! I've seen plastic gears used in metal assemblies to similar effect.
This same EXACT technique is used in my rotor for large Amatuer radio antennas. There is a fiber gear that is meant to fail before anything else can be damaged. So, this is a wise choice, and the gear can be made progressively stronger, until you get close to the breaking point for another gear or the actual housing! Some Kitchen-Aid mixers use a plastic gearcase as the ultimate failure component--I replaced mine with an aluminum one because their plastic one is just too weak...
Same as some blacksmithing power hammer that use micarta (paper and resin) gear as mechanical fuses
Shear pins in a tractor PTO (power take off) shaft serve the same purpose.
a specifically designed flaw, intentional and easy to perform routine maintenance part, to protect the multi thousand dollar (at the time, adjust for inflation) machine - that would be key to making profits for years to come. Pure Genius.
If only we made most things like that now a days, instead of soldered in batteries and "buy a new one" attitudes.
I’m not surprised by the PLA results. I’ve seen great durability results with many of them. As you found the hex shape is a weakness as it has less surface area for direct force than the gears. But that may give you the slip you want before failing a motor. Great summary and look forward to the other testing you plan.
I've always been skeptical of fancy "pla blends" but seems there may be something to it. I think its only undoing may be heat during operation but at ~800rpm output I'm not too concerned.
@@MakersMuse spot on. I print gears for varying industrial applications and found for sacrificial purposes and low temp operation, pla+ lasts longer than abs and even nylon in some cases.
The only thing I would quibble with is the description of why the hex fails instead of the teeth. The involute tooth profile is such that, if properly shaped, the force is applied tangentially to the circle. With the hex, the force direction is mostly outwards, so matching a particular amount of torque requires far more force, even if you ignore that the hex is also much smaller diameter.
As far as the results with the gear, yeah. This testing is primarily looking for yield strength, not toughness. At least from an engineering perspective. I realize that the engineering definitions of terms like "Strength", "Toughness", and "Hardness" are far more exact than a colloquial usage of them, in which case they're often relatively interchangable. Unfortunately, yield strength is often times correlated with being a brittle material, which almost definitionally means a low toughness. In other words, materials like PLA with a high yield strength are likely also going to not take abrupt application of force well at all. Fortunately, that probably is desirable in this application, because a sudden failure is still going to be a lot less likely to bind up and cause the motors to run hot for an extended period of time.
@@MakersMuse How about adding annealing to the mix? Great stuff though!
@@MakersMuse In my experience PLA gears stay cooler, because the surface is relatively hard and has less friction than a softer more rubbery material (like PETG or nylon). Lubricating the gears keeps them even cooler, since it further reduces the friction. Then the temp shouldn't be an issue.
A digital torque adapter would be more convenient for tests like this, they are not too expensive either - may be a handy addition! Especially with how useful these tests are!
True. Moreover, using this adapter will give more accurate results. During the test the specimen was loaded then unloaded several times in order to adjust the torque wrench. While a proper test should be carried out in a linear manner as possible until failure. The cycled load can harden the material, through minor plastic deformations, thus getting higher false result.
@@landmarker That was the purpose of the second gear, which was tested to failure at the torque found for the first gear. Not perfect, but a good check on the result.
As BASF is an abbreviation, I've always pronounced the individual letters like you do for IBM.
Not that it really matters, but yes that's how it is pronounced in Germany where the company originates from.
@@martin_mue - Badische Anilin- und Soda Fabrik halt.
Wait, you pronounce Ibbum as Aibe-emm?
@@nemernemer Lol, now I can't stop saying Oosay in my head.
In other countries (like my own) they advertise using the pronunciation of their name as a single word, not an acronym.
Buddy of mine sent me a hard-to-find drive gear from his Wurlitzer jukebox. I measured and modeled it in Fusion 360 and printed him 6 sets in Nylon on a nearly stock Ender 3. Two years later, and he's still on the first gear.
I love 3D printing.
Love this type and level of real-world application testing. This is far more useful than just some numbers on a spec sheet or anecdotal evidence. Thank you for putting in the time and effort!
Taulman makes some amazingly strong Nylon. I have used them for gears in an industrial lathe that was out of production and we couldnt get replacement parts. What was one of the best parts was how quiet it made the machine with nylon gears versus metal. I admit the gears only lasted a few years but considering we could print them for a couple bucks each, we just made an inventory of replacements.
I would love to see the tests with 100% infill, but in two ways. I saw the perimeters separating from the infill. So i'd love a test with 3 perimeters and 100% infill, but also a test were its lets say 100 perimeters with 100%, so that basically the whole thing is a perimeter that doesn't get to cool down and then have a string from the infill just touching it briefly... or heck. Even a test with 1 or even 0 perimeters and just solid infill.
I saw the same thing, so the teeth could not maintain position/mesh.
Yeah exactly.
On that note it would also be interesting seeing 1 perimeter and 100% infill
100% infill with 1 perimeter. Maybe concentric. Use autospeed in PrusaSlicer to perfectly extrude the gapfill and increase flow slightly.
Or tighter infill, there is alot of air in his gear, also extra layers between the infill would strenghten.
Angus, the amazing thing about 3d printing gears is being able to make herringbone and double helix gears, they are far more efficient, resistant to torque, and quieter. For your requirements I would definitely look at Polymaker CoPA-CF, quite pricy but definitely worth it, my second favourite is their normal CoPA, but they aren't as rigid.
Helical gears are not as efficient as standard spur gears due to the higher contact load and sliding friction for a given torque, although for most applications the difference is not significant considering the other advantages. Helical gears are stronger though due to the tooth effectively being longer. It would be interesting if he repeated the experiment with helical and herringbone and double helix (slight gap between the helixes) gears to test the strength increase. Herringbone gears are a bit stiffer in the centre where the helixes meet.
@@Bordpie I agree with the part you are saying on single helixes but double helix and herringbone don't have this downside. Yes herringbone is stronger due to the lack of a gap, but double helix is ideal for when the gear might get dirt or grease stuck in it, since it doesn't build up in a double helix due to the gap but in a herringbone it does.
RCTestflights made a few different style gearboxes for his autonomous solar rovers, much better durability than standard gears.
@@Christian-cz9bu They were also lubricated with slugs lol
Just want to say that I'm really enjoying your presentations and demonstrations. Excellent and engaging dialogue and cut-away work.
This was a really interesting watch, thanks Angus. I've been messing with a gear reduction for my Big Mixer project and have been trying to figure out how to deal with the increased torque. I was surprised to see some of my PETG parts fail before PLA, in particular I noticed a significant difference between eSun and Zyltech PETG rigidity.
Most of my failures seem to be at the attachment to the axle, rather than the gear teeth. Your approach with a 12mm hex head might be a better idea than using the axle detent and a 2.5mm screw that I have been using previously. Thanks for the idea!
Great insight! Very surprised that you didn't use 100% infill, since your gears are so small. I would print, at least, the top 3 contenders, solid, and retest.
20% Cubic infill can change the results according to its orientation
Yeah.. it seems like a couple of the gears failed not by the teeth splitting but the teeth being peeled from the infill.
Same with orientation of the Hex shaped mount, and the orientation of the teeth meshing. Two teeth meshing equally might be stronger than 1 tooth meshing, since the gears are of different materials. Obviously in a real application the weakest orientation will be the mode of failure.
Maybe the test could be re-performed with rotating the gears a few times at each torque level? That would also help even-out the wear during testing.
I think we can all agree the big surprise is "bass-ffff" as a pronunciation
Very interesting results! I've been keeping an eye on any updates for your RC platform. Cool to see you do a deep dive on one aspect of it. - Perry
What filement do u use to print ur 3D printed parts
always popular channels on top
@@Mizai not just any popular channel, but a 3d printer related channel, which makes sense to be on this channel.
hey ood
its b a s f @6:59 stands for "Badische Anilin-und Soda-Fabrik" which means "Baden aniline and soda factory" they make all sorts of chemicals, gasses and nasty stuff.
i live less than 5km away from it and they recently let out a big orange cloud of NOx after dumping hundred of liters of Dichlorobenzene into a river (not the first time lol)
Oh... that's somewhat awful!
@@MakersMuse No such thing as a guiltless chemical company. but some of them clean up after themselves. And others get shamed into it. eventually.
... and thats not the worst chapter in their history. Well it is huge company with many products, apects and a long history.
@@lukasskymuh5910 yea sometimes they blow something up and kill a bunch of people Like in 1921 and 1948 and a few smaller incidents after that
Can you test annealed PLA? I think the results would be pretty interesting
I think in that case will be need using 100% infill, so maybe will be fair enough compare also against remelted PETG in salt.
It would be hard to get a good shape because gears would ideally want to roll consistently between all the teeth.
But with testing, you could get as nice in the middle to keep that precision in the gear profile
consider how low PLA glass transition temperature is, you have to consider the heat from motors and batteries if there are any, and other factor like material fatigue.
@@nhozdien5058 Indeed, James Bruton has had a number of failures where the motors in his robots are directly attached to 3D printed PLA brackets through the PLA softening.
@@cambridgemart2075 yeah that is a really good point. Does that mean that PETG is worth it for the long run?
Infill patterns will probably make a huge difference. Next up, take that BASF filament and try different patterns at a fixed density. Would be very interesting!
I'd also be interested to see how the gears stand up to wear. I understand that your use is mostly for prototypes. However as a hobbyist a lot of the time I'm looking to make a functional (remakeable) part.
Ive been watching you since the “can wild parrots solve puzzles” video, you may think
“Hmmm, you must be watching so you know how to 3D and have better prints ect”
No, i do not have a 3D printer, i just watch these because they are entertaining videos.
Hehe, thanks for sticking around! Popeye still visits us all the time, I'm overdue for making him a new puzzle.
I'm in the exact same position.
@@cameron9830 and i'm too lol
That's a pretty interesting lineup!
What ur doing here, nah im kiding, yep this Is actually use full
always popular channels on top
You might see how each material wears as well. I know nylon is known as being self lubricating and slides against other gears well. I printed a couple large gears in bridge nylon for and R2D2 that weighed 50+ pounds and they held up incredibly well. Printing in nylon was a real pain though due to warping and shrinkage
Yes, and so any of the filaments cause nozzle wear in your printer? That concern, along with needing to run at higher temperatures and fewer color choices are what keep me away from filaments more exotic than PLA and PETG.
I wouldn't call Nylon self-lubricating, its partly flexible which helps. eSun PLA+ I would call self lubricating as it literally leaves a slight oily film if you rub it with your fingers
@@aidangillett5396 Nylon in and of itself is not self-lubricating, but there are some grades of it that you can buy as bar stock which have been oil-impregnated. These are intended for use as bushings / plain bearings or for sliding contact surfaces. I don't think you could make those into filament, though- the oil content would most likely cause some fairly important problems when heated.
One of the most important things on a gear is that it's designed correctly. If you do it with the correct tooth profile for a gear (and correct distance for meshing), they don't slide at all, they just roll. That reduces a lot the wear on gears. Now it does make sense to lubricate them anyway, specially the shaft and sides as those will be sliding over something.
PLA was used for gears and linear slides on hobby 3d pritners because it powderizes as it wears, effectively becoming a dry lube for itself. I've actually been thinking of using it as a linear slide on aluminum extrusions (8020 sells these made from POM) for a project I have in mind where linear rails would be overkill.
I'd love to see a full video series about the strength of these plastics in rotational strength (like this one), crush resistance (for use in hydraulic presses), shear resistance, and tension strength. I mean, if you don't do it I will, but you're actually skilled at this stuff.
I really like this video, and the practical setup of your test. I'd love to see a remake of this for a few of the fillaments where they've been soaked in water overnight. Apparently PLA is stronger when it is humid.
100% infill would be interesting with a decent amount of wall overlap.
If you want strong print - increase perimeters. It work better than infill.
@@myudshlihe Not necessarily. Walls can easily delaminate.
@@myudshlihe hi what do you mean by increase perimeters? what setting is that
@@bldjln3158 if walls delaminate - it is bad print. Check your printer and print settings.
@@Darfail I mean perimeters count. In PrusaSlicer it is "Perimeters" in "Layers and Perimeters." I don't know how it called in Cura. "Wall thickness" I guess.
Landed at the video by accident and then was so fascinated I just had to watch it to the end.
Really well done, as uausl, well thought through tests and presented.
Polyalchemy really has some nice PLA, I absolutely love the brand.
BASF bought Innofil3D, who made this filament before.
I like this video, it's so informative. you even put the details how long your filament is in your workshop.
I didn't know removing moisture will help until I watched this
love this test.
I had hope for PC and PC/CF
thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀
yes please! Test PC-CF with 6+ perimeter walls.
In my experience, the best gears are made from Polymaker Polymide and hardened for 2 hourse at 80C. Also, finer teeth tend to be stronger.
I also would fill the gearbox housing with a mixture of mineraloil (babyoil) and vaseline, that reduces friction and cools the teeth, otherwise PLA gears bind up really fast.
Larger teeth are stronger, but not as smooth. Yeah, heat (and UV) kills PLA! Nylon can absorb water. Lube is good!
Thanks for this interesting test! By the way: We spell it B-A-S-F in Germany. This brand is known for chemical products and even Audio-Cassettes in the past ;).
(BASF) is short for the name when originally founded back way in the past: 'Badische Anilin & SodaFabrik(en)' > 'Baden' is an area of the Southwest of Germany / State 'Baden-Württemberg' - where BIG Companies like Mercedes-Benz/Daimler, Porsche, NSU (Part of Audi production in Neckarsulm), Lidl, Layher, GetrAG, SAP, ZF, Gardena etc.all come from ...
In Netherlands we say Bas-F. 😄 I wonder how PC would hold up in this type of test. And does Ultimaker tough PLA compare to the BASF filament?
Und sogar Disketten 😂 hab noch welche im Keller
Thanks for making this video! I was looking for a good comparison of 3D printed gears all over youtube. If you intend to do further experiments in this direction you could test different gear designs like herringbone gears :D
Small 3dp gear: exists
Elephants foot effect: NOW HOLD IT RIGHT THERE BUDDY
PrusaSlicer has a great compensator for the elephant foot effect.
@@lio1234234 what's is it called haven't seen it
@@lio1234234 Cura too. Initial layer horizontal expansion or something like that. If you set it to a negative value you can get rid of it :)
@@rentaspoon219 Print Settings -> Advanced -> Elephant foot compensation.
Just reduce flow of initial layer.. Or when designing an object give it a chamfer of the bottom layer. Done
would love to see you try the engineering grade PLAs like the anneallable ones, Formfutura Volcano PLA etc
A big advantage of 3D printing is that you can put one of each material on every wheel and see which one fails or wears out first :) People more knowledgeable than us have already solved this problem IMO, almost every injection molded gear is made from nylon (lubricity and toughness). I've also seen acetal (aka POM aka Derlin), but that's a nightmare to print. I would stick with nylon, and I would avoid the fiber filled varieties, both due to lower lubricity and potential health reasons if it liberates carbon fibers (glass fibers may be safer).
For PLA lubrication would be nice. That lowers the heat generated due to friction thus allowing for a hotter enviroment before the gears melt.
7:24 Nylon, cause it slips. No damage to the motor nor the gear.
Nylon parts should be soaked in hot water for an hour. That is how it gains a lot of strength.
I think your choice in infill was suboptimal for a gear that needs to take a high load.
True but at the same time if he choose for example 100% infill it could be that the first failure point moves from the tooths towards the inner hex mount.
20% will never be ideal for strength but it gives us information about how and where the materials start to fail, which is important aswell to make an informed decision. Nevertheless the testing is not conclusive without testing say grid infill and 40% infill, 55% and 100% infill.
I always print parts that need peak strength at 100%, just to be sure. At 3-4 shells and high percentage of infill you can get higher print times than with 2 shells solid (and therefore linear) infill, for certain shapes at least.
Printed a solid gear for my fishing reel with PLA, secondary for oscillation in a spin reel, and it worked like a charm. That particular gear never get much stress unlike the main gear.
Glad you got you hands on BASFs Pro1 filament, I've pumped through dozens of kgs of it for fixtures/tooling for my work. It is also advertised as being able to print at a blazing 150 mm/s, but not something I've had success achieving (maybe with a voron build it would be.) Great video!
i had a BASF ABS and man this was amazing this filament. no warp on a open 3d printer.
Great testing. One thing instead of a torque wrench, a ratchet adapter with torque readout might have been better
Interesting! Something else to consider is that nylon is lower friction than most of the others, which could impact actual use. Also, I would love to see some Taulman filaments tested. They have some very helpful charts on their website that show strength and stiffness for their filaments, which could be helpful when selecting some for gears.
Great video, thank you for your work and time spent.
The ST play is super tough. Toughness is an engineering term where it will deform before fracture. The tougher it is the more deformation before fracture
Awesome video! Look forward to seeing how PC holds up and how going solid will help. BASF is pronounces "B" "A" "S" "F". I had a family member work there, they make several chemical components and are starting to get into filament and resin material.
Thanks for that incredible testing, I took a lot of notes to improve my 3D printed RC car
*@Maker's Muse*
15:30 it would be nice with some icons of the gears too, those cryptic item codes don't tell me much (it is very good that they exist too).
(Maybe also add actual numbers on the bars too, in a up/down configuration inside each pillar, so you don't need to guesstimate or go back in the video to know)
(That's the only improvements of the video I would make, I'm really glad the overview exists.)
I think you should try wear resistance too! :D Like... spinning 2 meshed gears at max rpm for a period of time
Very interesting test, but most importantly these results tell me: "Don't use a hex shaft!" Would be nice to have this re-tested with a different force transfer.
Maybe triangular shafts
one reason why torx was invented....
@@Peter_Schluss-Mit-Lustig A square shaft will offer significant improvements too if one cant get a triangular one
@@uwezimmermann5427 True, but I don’t think a printed gear would be able to cope with the tiny splines.
@@timehunter9467 good point, I don't know too, but when we think about it, if you stick a torx driver inside, the profile on the printed part actually has the rounded shapes which may be easy enough to handle in 3D printing.
Great test labs, great for selecting materials. Thanks
Nice work! I'd say the PA12 (nylon) is a better choice since it doesn't damage the gear at all when it fails. Meaning you can keep resuming the use of it, long as the load goes back down and stay under. It's like a fail-safe damage prevention. Ideal for any sudden force/stop situation in RC cars.
Interesting test, thanks. Incidentally, the whole idea of a keyed shaft is to provide a known point of failure. So using your results, you could build in a keyed fixing which fails just before the gear lets go...
14:47 the PA12 + GF15 test shows one of the gears being permanently damaged and possibly half ripped off at 12Nm, it's partially springing back yes but it's obviously broken at this point.
Noted that too but for me, if you look closely can see the gear shearing off at 11nm
glass of carbon fiber (fill) is not for gears (or anything with mating surfaces) as it's very abrasive, and it's way even stronger not a good idea for gears.
Late to the party but if you ever plan on doing similar teasing in the future (speaking specifically to gathering torque data) I'd recommend a torque wrench adapter than a regular torque wrench. You can just keep cranking on it till the part fails and the digital adapter will tell you the peak torque. I first learned about using this method from ProjectFarm who does this in his videos when testing torque numbers. You can get an idea of what I'm describing if you check out his video on Anti Seize compounds, around the 4:30 mark! Or, really, most of his videos on small tools and such but that was the first one that came to mind
The 'mechanical fuse' concept is an interesting one. As seen in the comments, there are many instances of them. But one that comes to mind, are called shear pins and often used in lawn and garden equipment, they connect something like an auger to a shaft and will shear if you hit a rock, etc.
You should use double helical gears. You are printing so you can do the double helix in a single gear. (Kinda looks like a tractor wheel.)this gear type is great for high load applications.
This brought to mind an idea. Could you possibly print with metal (washers) imbedded in the material for added strength, perhaps allowing you to control how the gear fails.
that would actually make it weaker unless you make a way for the plastic to grip on to the metal.
Really interesting! I did not expect that Elixir would perform so good. Also the BASF (Spoken B-A-S-F, it stands for "Badische Anilin und Sodafabrik") seem like a really good underdog filament for structural parts which doesn't break the bank like oder BASF filaments
I really like these "real world" tests. When it comes to PLA, there are so many varieties and blends, that I really like the vendors that let you know the base filaments. If you can find some PLA based on NatureWorks 3D870 Ingeo PLA, you'll have a modified PLA that can be anneals very well for extra strength and temperature resistance. I'd also like to see CF-PETG and CF-PC (or an easier to print PC+ Blend).
It's probably also important to test at the speed they will spin at in production for a reasonable work time. They can work great at first but then start to melt.
I think a Herringbone gear would be able to withstand wayyy more torque
Yup, they can. A good idea for someone doing a video like this would be to test in the way this guy did, which was great, but then test different types of gears, then do it all under a hotter temperature because gears tend to generate a little heat. Nothing too serious, if you grease them or w/e, but they still get a little warm which can change the whole experiment.
Thank you Angus! I may have to try some of that BASF PLA!
I've used grey PC Blend from Prusa to print a 3:1 reduction spur gear for a large brushed DC servo. I'm not sure of the exact torque, but it's in the region of 35Nm.
Printed with 5 perimeters, 7 top/bottom layers at 0.2 layer height and 35% gyroid infill. It has been in service (in a car engine bay, no less!) for months now with no issues whatsoever. The original gear was injection moulded POM.
I think i may have mentioned this on twitter, but I'd be intrigued to see some sla resin gears here too.
Definitely on the list!
Before watching the video I'm going to go ahead and say that my personal favorite is PETG. I'm very curious to see what your results are!! Update: Okay, how could I have been so wrong haha. However, to note, the quality depends so much on producer that I think it's impossible to say which material is the worst.
I have been designing some machines lately and the PETG that I used for the parts worked better than any other material I tried to print with. I've never had a failed part with this PETG I'm printing with, and it's lasting much longer than any other PLA I've printed with. Most PLA's would start to crack after one year of use. They say that PETG has worse UV resistance, but I think that in the end the PETG I have holds up better than the PLA I had.
On top of that this PETG prints really nice with an E3D hotend with a titanium filament path, so no PTFE tube inside this hotend. I was expecting problems, but my prints never looked this good.
One more thing I miss in the comparison is a comparison of the friction coefficient, which greatly impacts how long a gear survives, and how hard it is to turn. Some plastics just really aren't that frictionless. PLA in my experience performs the best as a common filament, but Nylon should have an even lower friction. And eventually PTFE has the best of all of these, but I sincerely recommend against using PTFE in a 3D printer as it's a super dangerous plastic. If you have pet birds, stay away from printing with PTFE as your birds will definitely pass away from even the tiniest amount of fumes.
I don't think you're wrong, PETG would still be my choice under the circumstances. I had some loaded PLA prints and there's some chemical degradation happening, they all shattered after 1-3 years, it doesn't even feel the same. PETG is pretty well behaved, low surface friction, good abrasion resistance. UV resistance? Depends on additives and colour, but i wouldn't say PLA is anyhow remarkably good in this regard, not from the tests i have seen.
Nylon could be worthwhile, maybe HIPS, SAN, ASA, worth testing, but PETG is so cheap and doesn't cause much headache...
The Fusion 3 F410 printer I was repairing has a dual material 3d printed extruder gear. I don't know which materials as it's not my printer, but I can tell you that having one material interface with the motor and another interface with the gear for the extruder was a really cool design.
thanks for sharing this with us. I found also that the design of the center of the gear is very important. I have designed a double sized gears, one on top of the other. If I just design it to be printed as a single part (layer on top each time) the break point appears at the jonction of the two gears. If on the contrary I design as one small gear inside the bigger one, the print will be stronger.
the Nylon is good as something like a damper or clutch for too high torque.
I still don't get why you didn't use 100% infill for a strength test of a gear
Yeah I stopped watching cause if I was printing a gear, I would want it strong, I'd then test material strength for final prints.
You might not want it to be too strong, imagine a yard rake where the claws of the rake are thin metal and you are pulling it behind your rider mower, you want that gear to last a long time but you'd rather have the gear self destruct in the gear train before the rake mangles itself if caught on a branch or something big!
@@wolfrig2000 this video is about material strength comparison, not a specific application where you want to limit the strength.
@@crzprgrmmr and material strength on anisotropic materials depends on many factors. If you print at 40% infill on everything, why would you test a 100% infill gear? It’s about application. That being said of course you could do any level of infill if you’re doing relative strength testing (same conditions, different material). It’s a relative test, absolute testing would be cool but isn’t what’s happening here anyway.
Nice set of tests. I am looking at a number of printed gear applications in robotics. Three things worth mentioning. (1) Infill - as many said, a sold gear would be interesting to try. (2) But I think the clearance on the hex is also important for those where the hex rotated. The clearance might seem an insignificant figure when compared with the A/F dimension but, in reality, the clearance should be compared with the difference between the A/F and A/C. This is a much bigger percentage. We drive a lot of 3D printed mechanisms with 1/2" hex rod and always ensure the fit on the hex is as close as possible. (3) It's probably also worth extending the length of the hex socket on the printed gear and perhaps making it thicker to ensure it is not the first point of failure. Then we can see what the teeth will really do with the Nylons. Great work and I always enjoy your clear and concise delivery - one of the best!
Results of Polycarbonate (PC) would be interesting too. Teeth and area of contact of the teeth to the radius of the gear should be printed with 100% infill and the center with infill, therefore the teeth have more absolute strength but can bend relative to the center of the gear . That avoids too brittle breakage behavior. Additionally, the infill can be designed to correspond to the inner stress introduced into the radius (But therefore has to be manually constructed in the CAD itself and not to be used with the automatic function of the slicer software) Cubic infill f.e. is not suitable because the stress is mainly "in plain" , and therefore the 3-D part of the infill does not have any beneficial effect to the strength of the structure.
you can get digital torque wrench adaptors that have a "max" setting.
100%
Incrementing up on a standard torque wrench introduces all kinds of nasty variables, especially in plastic. Testing methodology probably eliminated some of that, but just one iteration is a tad low.
I like nylon for gears bc of its memory and its self-lubricating. It's important to rehydrate nylon after printing before applying any stress.
Rehydrate? Could you tell more about this?
@@BOTmaster15 as you may know, you have to dry nylon before printing it. Doing this makes the nylon brittle. It will rehydrate on it's own in open air after a week or two, if I'm remembering right. I leave my nylon parts in water for a day or so. They are noticeably different afterward. if you tap on them before the soak they have a higher pitch brittle sound. After soaking it's more of a thund.
Great test thank you. Looking at the tensile strength of each material supports your results.
In future tests please look into loaded wear as well please. Strength is only one thing.
If you can also look into resin filled gears. Perhaps filling a gear with a single outer shell could give higher strength. Printing much larger gears would be good as well, deformation or damage to the center hub contributed to the test results too
That was great, well done, but as you compared gears I started wondering about wear. many applications are more about wear than strength, a winch lifting a load is strength, but car wheels can slip but need to continue for many revolutions and probably heat up causing increased wear with different results for different plastics. Would be more time consuming to test wear but a rig with a small continuous load over an extended time would be interesting. I feel for you down there with the covid thing, I expect we on the Gold Coast have it coming our way soon, 3D printing would be a good pass time during lockdown. Take care mate, love your work.
Knowing torque at which material fails one could design weak point into gear so it will fail predictably and protect other components from both teeth flying around and motor stalling and burning.
the much easier version would be protecting the motor via limiting its current, which is rather trivial and very reliable. The brushless motors are driven by 3 (usually) mosfets, adding a current measurement, aside the hall effect (rpm) should be a nobrainer.
hey bro, you really need to test the temperature resistance of PLA. I've had my PLA gears strip out on me on a hot day, Can't say the same for any of the petg or ABS gears that I've used. the BASF filament looks good, but if its like every other PLA and starts to turn into silly putty at only 60c... yeah...
good point. PLA does not hold up well in outdoor conditions
Try tempering the PLA it gets a lot stronger and handels a much higher temperature then all the others after tempering
@@tullgutten yes but annealing pla causes the object to shrink and warp
In small gears running at high speed, temperature resistance is a very important thing. I have made gearboxes in the past with PLA on the motor pinion and it just melts with no load. I also made a electric mountain board, and printed some PLA motor pulleys, which were ok at slow speed, but would also melt at sustained high speeds. Printing the pulleys again from nylon gave the heat resistance they needed.
finally some real testing!!! Great work...
The only thing I wonder is, does age influence the strength? I mean, it printed nice, but that is not necessarily the same thing. Did you test anything that is not +5 years old?
I really wish you could test PEEK gears.
And a polycarbonate, hi 3DPN.
Lets make them from Boron Carbide while we're at it. It is the 3rd hardest substance known (behind cubic boron nitride and diamond) can be printed on binder jetting printers. It's used in tank armour and bulletproof vests.
But you can ;)?
Nice video. With the way the teeth failed along the perimeters vs infill, I would like to see you do some of this testing with more top and bottom layers and a larger overlap into the perimeters. ALso would be interesting to see if actually less perimeters and denser infill so there is more of a connection to the mass of the gear at the point of repeated failure (the base of the tooth).
I haven't done a lot of testing or printing for that matter, but I used to have this carbon fiber filament that was so strong me and my nephew printed a hollow wheel where one end was completely hollow and the whole inside, and the other end was full on the end. Kind of like a skateboard wheel where it was like 98% hollow. The shell part was only like 3mm thick...and otherwise this thing was hollow. We printed with 100% infill with this carbon fiber and i put all my weight, 180 lbs, on 1 foot on this thing and it didn't break. This was on his ender 3 pro. Since then I got an ender v2 used and it has some problems. I'm working out the kinks but even now it doesn't print anywhere near that strong. So I think a big part of it was printer health. If you have any mechanical issues whatsoever it won't come out that strong. I printed a little boat benchmark and it turned out pretty good, but I can break it with my hands if I try. I still have some of these wheels I printed with his printer before on my desk. I even have 2 of them that are like Heely wheels (far less hollow than the ones I mentioned b4) and they are fucking solid. Like metal, except not as good against heat (PLA). I wish I could get my printer to print like that. I ordered another V2 (new this time) and waiting for it in the mail still...hoping it'll print as well as his ender 3 pro printed.
Can’t wait to see the PC tests! I would love to see how Prusa’s new PC Carbon Fiber Blend compares.
The only problem is that carbon fiber and glass are really abrasive. Think the gears would each other too fast.
What about wear? Assuming you are operating below the breaking point, material wear would be the next criteria I would look at.
I’ve been doing a similar application where rotational toughness and abrasion resistance was important so I did matterhacker’s NylonK (Kevlar) which isn’t as strong as the glass-filled, but claims high abrasion resistance (good for gears) but it does for a a very rough surface.
This video and watching how the gears snap geve me a clue how to improve gears design to withstand higher load, not being much heavier or bigger (perhaps even smaller removing material from areas with less load)
Good vid! Now run them at 2000rpm and see which survive. Static strenghth is a small factor in gear material selection. ;-)
At 2000 RPM, heat will play a role. What about a long duration at 500 rpm?
FINALLY, SOMETHING I CAN UNDERSTAND, GEARS AND SIMPLE MECHANICS!
I have a roll of CF reinforced nylon i print with when i need strength - Add North Adura X. Has a beautiful matte finish and is way easier to print than regular nylon since it has almost no shrinkage.
It's a Swedish brand but I'm sure you can get similar filament in Sydney.
Huh! Super cool results - keep it up buddy!
Try resins, some of them should be like PETG, but prints faster for solid parts and handles high temp better.
Resins generally speaking are really fragile compared to any fdm machine.
@@jothain For gears I'd worry more about abrasion. Sure, when a resin part breaks, it really _breaks_ and doesn't rip apart or deform otherwise. But if it's stronger, that might not matter. But due to the brittleness, the gears will probably wear down a lot faster than those made from softer plastics.
@@harmless6813 pla last really well the abrasion. I have at work carton packaging machines and there's couple of places I made bit different prototype parts to test. Biggest problem was that layer lines needed to be actually sanded off as they didn't wear off which I was expecting. Also made one prototype part for pneumatic attached anvil/hammer parts. I was expecting it to demolish within hour, but out curiousity left it on for and it was there for couple months until I got machined parts to me. PLA is way, way better "technical" material than many think. Really the only downside is that it doesn't handle heat well.
are you gonna build a voron now btw, everyone's making one now xD
Id love to. the print speeds and accuracy are amazing. Sadly don't have the cash. A good hot end alone costs as much as my first printer. lol
@@xXKisskerXx honestly accuracy is on par with Most decent officers printers. Filament extrusion is very inaccurate
Very interesting. I would have expected the nylon to be quite a bit better than PLA.
I'd really like to see some kind of wear test on the various gears.
Perhaps set them up skewed or poorly meshed to a driven steel gear and see which lasts the longest before chopping out. Next video Angus? 😊
Greetings from Brisbane! Good video mate. Will you publish your robot project when complete? I've been looking for a robot/car project to work on.
Before I watch the rest of this I’m going to guess nylon.
Nylons are definitely very good. My favourite nylons are from Polymaker's polymide series. They are definitely the best I've tested!
Good video, I don’t think there really is a preferred method of fail when it comes to gears as the end result is still the same. I guess if gear is deforming you would have some advanced warning but with anything with any real rpm it’s still going to fail quickly. Would be interesting to make a composite gear, say pla hub with a modified nylon teeth.
@@karlnowakowski7866 nylons are better anyway because of their naturally lubricating properties.
I would have said the same thing based on the title, but there is a huge difference between 'is best' and 'can handle the highest load before it fails catastrophically'.
I know the company pronounced as bas-eff. Know them from cassette tapes and VCR tapes.
Great Video. Very useful information. I usually print in 3dfillies PLA+ as its reliably great.
For serious toughness, I print in Prusament PC blend. Its crazy strong. I will be trialling PC Blend Carbon Fibre soon.
Looking forward to you next video. They are always good.
Cheers
Nice video 🙏. BASF ultrafuse used to be innofill until they where aquired by BASF. We print solely ultrafuse PLA and ABS and the properties are indeed very good.