Printed gears stick together

[raylo32]

I am trying to print a herringbone gear set I found on Thingiverse. It is a pair of matching gears... basically a small gear driving a larger gear for a reduction that I customized for size. I printed this out on my Qidi XOne (2) and it worked fine, the 2 gears mesh perfectly but came apart nicely as if they were 2 separate parts. Only issue is that I need to make these bigger than the Qidi can print so I sent the job to my Clik N Print which is a Makerbot clone. Again, it printed fine but the gears are welded together and will not come apart without breaking the ring gear. See pics below, blue is the Qidi gearset and red is the Clik N Print. I stopped the red print early to check for size and to see if the gears would separate... and they don't. Are there any settings I can change to get the Clik N Print to print this properly? Any other tips?

[curious aardvark]

what slicer are you using ?
For my clicknprint I always use Flashprint.
Just suits the machine better than simplify3d.

Flashprint lets you adjust internal and external gaps. So you can fine tune them untill the gears don't stick.

[raylo32]

Yes, I use S3D. The dimensions are never true when I print on the KnP, either. If I make the same part on both the Qidi and the KnP the Qidi is accurate but not the KnP. I'll check out FlashPrint and give it a shot if they have a free version. Not sure I want to pay for yet another slicer.

BTW, I am using the Makerbot Replicator dual profile in the slicer. Is that what you use?

what slicer are you using ?
For my clicknprint I always use Flashprint.
Just suits the machine better than simplify3d.

Flashprint lets you adjust internal and external gaps. So you can fine tune them untill the gears don't stick.

[raylo32]

Well, I tried the FlashForge Print slicer and if anything the problem was worse. This thing just ignores or is unable to resolve the internal gaps. The left example in the photo below was using S3D with the Makerbot 1 dual profile where you can see the vestiges of an internal gap in the gears... and the right example was with FF Print and the FF creator pro profile where you can see that the teeth are totally fused. I guess I am out of luck with this task for now since my Qidi X One that prints it perfectly won't print one as large as I need, while the Klik N Print just can't pull off the internal gaps. I really need to get a higher end printer one of these days.

Edit: I didn't see anywhere in FlashPrint where i could tweak internal gaps... unless maybe it was "shells" and "perimeter" settings?

[curious aardvark]

nope - hang on.
Hmm, weird I can see the download page but no links appear.

Have to look when I'm in the workshop.

It is weird, my knp is super accurate.
Not the fastest machine around, but always been bang on dimensionally.
You can actually adjust external and internal gaps, with s3d you just get internal ones.

[raylo32]

How do you adjust gaps in S3D or FlashPrint?? I don't see any settings labeled as such.

In the interim I am doing a workaround on this project. Just printing a quadrant of the ring gear and then will glue it to a bare ring of the needed diameter that will be printed separately. I took the full diameter ring and pinion unit and just truncated it to about 1/3. This is small enough that I can use the Qidi. Sort of like the blue example in the picture in first post.

I don't really need gear teeth for the full circumference anyway. This is going to be a micro adjuster for my espresso coffee grinder and it will only need to work in a fairly narrow range to fine tune the grind as coffee dries out over time or when I get a fresh load.

[curious aardvark]

here's the adjustment settings in flashprint:
flashprint adjust.jpg

Also why don't you just seperate the two pieces and print them further apart ?

In simplify 3d select the model, click MESH, Then SEPERATE CONNECTED SURFACES.
Nothing appears to happen, but if you look at the list of models loaded, you will see a new one. The two gears will now seperate and can be individually saved, deleted, moved, resized etc.

Amazing how useful that option is :-)

Size adjustment in simplify3d:

s3d-adjust.jpg

[raylo32]

Not having any luck with this in S3D and I don't understand the settings in FlashPrint.

Here are snips of the model list from S3D of the base model (only 1 model listed) and after I have gone into mesh and separate connected surfaces (like 25 models listed??). Clicking on any of the multitude of models does nothing except the first which deletes the whole thing... and one other one that simply changes the color of the whole thing.

[curious aardvark]

right - first thing first.
You NEED to go to the simplify3d website and WATCH ALL THE INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS ON HOW TO USE SIMPLIFY3D.
That's the first thing :-)

Second.
you clearly have more on the build plate than just the bit you showed in the pictures.

When you click on any one of the seperated parts, it will select that part and it will show up as selected on the plate.

So you can remove or move the selected bit and ignore or remove the others.

But if you went and spent a couple of hours learning how to use s3d it would improve your life immeasurably :-)

same goes for flashprint - I can show you what to use, but unless you want to give me some money, I can't/won't do it for you.
:-)

ie: I can use rempre support software to do it for you and give you some tuition - but not for free :-)

[raylo32]

Indeed, the model has a lot going on under the hood. I didn't create it so I don't know what all that is. I don't really have time to get that deep into the slicers... Life is too short and I have too many other hobbies. Maybe one of these days...

For now my workaround is doing the trick. I printed the bare ring and a quadrant of the ring gear separately and epoxied them together. I have also made a base plate and still need to procure a couple of axles and a spring to make a fulcrum to engage and disengage the gear. But I am close.