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I'll need a special ring gear with internal teeth for a trail truck project and I was thinking about printing the gear but then I thought about using a service like Send Cut Send to make it from metal.
By chance, has any of our members here tried this approach and was it successful?
Reckon I'll submit this question to SCS as well but figured I'd start here.
Thanks for your feedback.

Closest I can do is a printed steel gear I made for our fireplace damper If you do the chat thing with SCS you can send them your file and they will let you know if they see any issues with their process.

Silvertripple is the guy to talk to , he's had good results with 3d printed metal gears @silvertriple

Sendcutsend is a laser or water jet cut on a flat metal, not printed. I was just showing a printed steel gear I had made is all

GoMachV wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 1:16 pm Sendcutsend is a laser or water jet cut on a flat metal, not printed. I was just showing a printed steel gear I had made is all

most internal cut gears I've seen have a back face behind the teeth that just cant be done by water jet , unless its just a ring gear

Dadio wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 1:41 pm

GoMachV wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 1:16 pm Sendcutsend is a laser or water jet cut on a flat metal, not printed. I was just showing a printed steel gear I had made is all

most internal cut gears I've seen have a back face behind the teeth that just cant be done by water jet , unless its just a ring gear

Thanks!
You're right about that.
The design is only in my head at the moment. I was thinking about printing a hub that fastens to the back face of the ring gear.
...even thought about designing the hub to resemble a torque converter.
I'm trying to cram a motor (probably a 380 to save space) and some gear reduction into a 1:10 scale v8 engine block and automatic transmission housing. Space is very limited so using a ring gear with internal teeth places the motor and output shaft centerlines in closer proximity.

IIRC Send Cut Send recommends router cutting for gears as it's more precise and leaves a better finish. Then there's the $35 minimum order. Could have it made out of plastic since a dozen will cost as much as one... spares for a lifetime.

Dangeruss wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 2:17 pm IIRC Send Cut Send recommends router cutting for gears as it's more precise and leaves a better finish. Then there's the $35 minimum order. Could have it made out of plastic since a dozen will cost as much as one... spares for a lifetime.

Yeah, they can use water jet as well - depending on material and thickness.
Actually, minimum order has risen to $39 now (thanks Joe ).
Anyway, I have them quoting frame parts and thought about adding gears to the order.
By the time I'm ready to actually place the order, the parts list might grow a bit more. Could be $45 by then.
I haven't yet reached out to SCS about the gear.

I'm thinking may be a cheap replacement set of gears for an electric drill might get you something useful? There are a bunch of these things of various construction on aliexpress, of course the risk therein is the fact that it is aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801951684991.html?src=google&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21USD%213.99%213.99%21%21%21%21%21%40%2112000018868224796%21ppc%21%21%21&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=708-803-3821&isdl=y&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&aff_platform=google&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&gclsrc=aw.ds&albagn=888888&ds_e_adid=&ds_e_matchtype=&ds_e_device=c&ds_e_network=x&ds_e_product_group_id=&ds_e_product_id=en3256801951684991&ds_e_product_merchant_id=107562253&ds_e_product_country=US&ds_e_product_language=en&ds_e_product_channel=online&ds_e_product_store_id=&ds_url_v=2&albcp=20268592310&albag=&isSmbAutoCall=false&needSmbHouyi=false&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAj9m7BhD1ARIsANsIIvDRgEPOylH4-z5AcAElKTi-lGsJqAC1BHQJ9UNC5Q_udmzvv06n7hEaAlvAEALw_wcB&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

hell if you have an old garbage drill with dead batteries maybe strip that bad boy down. garage sale item also for pennies.

Dadio wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 1:06 pm Silvertripple is the guy to talk to , he's had good results with 3d printed metal gears @silvertriple

Well as mentioned in my experimentation, while I get reproductible results with one online printing service, I have to remind you that I had to rework the Hunter and Super Wheelie idle gears to get something usable by offseting faces of the tooth. There is different ways to obtain metal printed part so far :
- SLM : powder based process, with laser sintering (what I used for my gears) : there is apparently shrinking during cooling, affecting idle gears differently depending on the size of the gears, that is exactly what explains the requirement I had to rework the teeth by adding some offset to compensate (it took a bit of tries to get both a good result and something that can be reproduced)
- FDM : filament is a metal powder included in some thermo plastic and once printed it gives you a green part. This green part will need to be cooked at high temperature for 2 cycles (800 and 1600°C) to obtain the metal part. Plastic vanishes in the process, and the part shrinks highly due to this. I've talked with one of my friend who eperimented a bit in his job and he told me the shrinking is not really predictable.
- there is other processes, and I've not looked yet in details on those and what it would result in for us...

So far CNC or cutting seems to be much more easy to manage in terms of dimensionnal accuracy...

jwscab wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 3:49 pm I'm thinking may be a cheap replacement set of gears for an electric drill might get you something useful? There are a bunch of these things of various construction on aliexpress, of course the risk therein is the fact that it is aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801951684991.html?src=google&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21USD%213.99%213.99%21%21%21%21%21%40%2112000018868224796%21ppc%21%21%21&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=708-803-3821&isdl=y&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&aff_platform=google&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&gclsrc=aw.ds&albagn=888888&ds_e_adid=&ds_e_matchtype=&ds_e_device=c&ds_e_network=x&ds_e_product_group_id=&ds_e_product_id=en3256801951684991&ds_e_product_merchant_id=107562253&ds_e_product_country=US&ds_e_product_language=en&ds_e_product_channel=online&ds_e_product_store_id=&ds_url_v=2&albcp=20268592310&albag=&isSmbAutoCall=false&needSmbHouyi=false&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAj9m7BhD1ARIsANsIIvDRgEPOylH4-z5AcAElKTi-lGsJqAC1BHQJ9UNC5Q_udmzvv06n7hEaAlvAEALw_wcB&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

hell if you have an old garbage drill with dead batteries maybe strip that bad boy down. garage sale item also for pennies.

Hmmm, that's an interesting suggestion - hadn't thought about repurposing drill gears. I don't buy from Ali and both my drills are in good shape. I'll check ebay.
thanks!!

That was just one option. I'm sure there a ton of websites along with eBay too.

Good luck!!!!

silvertriple wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 3:53 pm

Dadio wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 1:06 pm Silvertripple is the guy to talk to , he's had good results with 3d printed metal gears @silvertriple

..

So far CNC or cutting seems to be much more easy to manage in terms of dimensionnal accuracy...

That's what I was hoping for.
I had considered SLM but there are lots of unknowns so CNC cutting from sheet material was my next best option.

thanks!!

jwscab wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 4:35 pm That was just one option. I'm sure there a ton of websites along with eBay too.

Good luck!!!!

Holy smokes! I bet I could make something with this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/316085312573?_skw=drill+gears&itmmeta=01JGMFD2N4F8YDD6KPTYFDJHZZ&hash=item4998271c3d:g:QAAAAOSwAi5ncDOB&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8HoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKkCJsJbwiy%2FozCxhYY9PBDv24ARK99oM4lz1zsxiH3xeR%2FM10aglZyqix2kwLkyMWUBTxbV1t1BF%2FKaoA7I21Rvwcb37EGcTf5CVV1uQmHEY8Mtls%2FhF5VQueifKvY6IlkkqqzOxYYVyk7J%2Bu%2FNV2vXV%2F4SvubHjLL62jrtS%2BJbD3gqySLTbbRnjB9OLd9--tS9mfycdqH0CgkFLtMtXObEuI4ASKP2yABm3m8R91RboJWMxVt4W9ZR3eJmsUFyxjziecm0uKD7AuwfLR%2FhyyzxQnVq1te1mZQGrHquqOO%2FTQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9iqtI-FZQ

I really appreciate that they've included dimensions and tooth counts for each gear.
Thanks again for the suggestion!!

heck yeah! you could technically build a real deal automatic transmission with this stuff.

if you need any special shafts or adapters to these parts, just let me know.