Talk:Herringbone gear

3D Printing for manufacture
Some RepRap-derived 3D printers use these types of gear in their construction, and the gears themselves are printed on the same RepRap machines. Is it worth mentioning about this kind of manufacture? JayAbbott (talk) 02:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Which printers are these that use herringbone gears? Which use self-printed gears?
 * I've never seen a RepRap that could print herringbone gears, although I've seen Makerbots (later generations, with tweaks) do it. The problem is the usual one for 3D printing, that 3D printers are bad at printing accurate circles. To do so needs a precise print nozzle, but it also needs sophistications like a heated build platform, so as to control warping and differential shrinkage.
 * Although we might in time add gearwheels to the 3D printing article, it's going to be a long time before 3D printing becomes a credible way to build herringbone gears, rather than other existing methods. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Comparison of cost/use for a 3D printed gear/bearing
As I see that five years have elapsed since the first comments on this topic, there are a few observations to be made.
 * Even quite low-end/inexpensive 3D printers (additive printers using plastic) can print a working Herringbone gear.
 * Examples of Herringbone gears on Thingiverse.

(I have printed such on my Chinese clone of a Prusa i3 - in case the above examples seem insufficient.)

The fabrication characteristics of a Herringbone gear are dramatically different.

Printed out of plastic on an additive 3D printer, the gear is:
 * Cheap and remarkably easy to fabricate.
 * Self-aligning, and able to take some axial load (in contrast other readily-printable bearing types).

Machined from metal, the gear is:
 * Complex/costly to fabricate.
 * Able to handle much higher loads, with longer wear life, tighter tolerance, and less friction.
 * Much heavier than a plastic gear of the same size.

In light-duty usage, the easy fabrication and self-aligning properties make a Herringbone gear a remarkably attractive possibility in 3D printed designs. Seems that somehow this observation should make it into the Wikipedia article, exactly how is not immediately clear.

A related link: The Future of Gear Bearing Technology. pbannister (talk) 01:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Double Helical vs Herringbone
A herringbone gear is a type of double helical gear. They are not one in the same. A double helical gear has a groove cut around the center of the gear where the apex would be. This is because of the type of machinery that a double helical gear is cut on. Double helical gears are commonly used in power transmission applications as they do not have lateral thrust in either direction due to the opposing helical angles cancelling each other out. A herringbone gear can only be cut on a Herringbone gear shaping machine. The great majority of these machines were made by W.E. Sykes and the Farrel companies. These machines are unique in that they can generate the true apex in the center of the gear and thus do not need a groove to be cut around the center of the gear. This allows the gear to be used in positive displacement fluid movement applications such as gear pumps as well as the above mentioned applications. I am an engineer at a large fluid management corporation which produces gear pumps using herringbone gears machined by Sykes 1A and 3C gear shapers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.49.63.193 (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see someone corrected the definition to "a specific *type* of double helical gear." That's close enough for me. "Continuous tooth double helical gear" might be more descriptive but this is okay. Mr 206.49.63.193, Sunderland planers were also capable of sutting continuous-tooth double-helicals, aka 'herringbone' gears :) the cutters are cheaper, too.  210.22.142.82 (talk) 14:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

"Benefits"
Can someone remove this section ? It makes no sense.

Besides that, it's not really a "benefit." I've never ever seen a situation where a gear was not positively located on the shaft. Not saying it has never happened but this is not something anyone in real life would consider a benefit.

Someone who is not lazy could also add a section to explain the fact that true herringbones are only useful for pumps. For power transmission, testing has shown that double-helicals (with the gap in the middle) deflect more evenly across the teeth and wear more evenly. They are also (important for submarine use) quieter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.22.142.82 (talk) 07:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Stable and unstable
Gear has a discussion that begins "For both possible rotational directions, there exist two possible arrangements for the oppositely-oriented helical gears or gear faces. One arrangement is stable, and the other is unstable." If this discussion is correct, it should be included in this article, perhaps with more clarity and detail. If this discussion is incorrect, it should be removed from Gear. —Anomalocaris (talk) 06:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Herringbone gear. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071225161724/http://www.gears-manufacturers.com:80/herringbone-gears.html to http://www.gears-manufacturers.com/herringbone-gears.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 20:24, 23 January 2016 (UTC)