The Search for the turbo cd gear

[blueraven]

I have a Gear.

I'm going to a machine shop this week to see how much it will cost to have them done in Aluminum, and in PVC.

They use cMake I think to render the gear in a a 3D enviro, then they "print" it.

Cast it might be more. We'll see.

[SignOfZeta]

IP would be really expensive to set up, but cheaper per-gear the more gears we make. If you only want 10 gears the 3D printing would be best. If you want 1000, IP would be best.

I think making them out of metal is a bad idea. The original gear didn't break because it was worked so hard, it broke because it got old and dried up and brittle. If we make these new gears from metal...I have a feeling we'll be looking for reproductions of the other two gears before too long since they'l be obliterated by the metal one.

Nylon or delrin is probably best.

[BlackandBlue]

I've heard of people drilling and gluing gears together in order to create a working gear.

Thats what I did with my white cdrom2.  But, if someone goes through with this, I would be down for some....

[Twood1130]

I think the first thing we need is an accurate diagram, or cad document of the gear. That way we can get quotes from various companies.

[Duo_R]

Not sure if you guys realize it, but making a new gear has been discussed a ton in the past. If someone manages to finally make a gear, my hat is off to you....

So, i finally measured the gear wheel and hope the result contains sufficient inforations to clone the wheel. sorry for the pathetic drawing and amateurish presentation :oops:



and now, let's do it

[nat]

Right. We've been discussing this for 3+ years now, but as yet no one has found a place to actually get the gear manufactured.

[Twood1130]

If i had this gear in a cad document , it would be much easier to get quotes

[BlueBMW]

Somewhere I've got a copy of solidworks.... If I can find it I'll draw it up.

[Official Ninja]

Bumping this. I'm also interested in a gear. I've been opening up random older portable CD players and older CD-rom PC drives and so far no match.

[Official Ninja]

Long story short, both me and my brother work in manufacturing at the same company. He is a designer I am a lead man in manufacturing on CNC mill machines.

Hes not a trubografx fan, but today I showed him the above drawing of the gear and asked what he thought about getting one made or making some our selves. He is going to draw up the gear and get quotes from gear makers and prototype manufacturers. Being in the buisness we know who to call. I am also looking at tooling as I really think once a drawing is made I can make gears one at a time on the mill, maybe "sneak" a few dozen or so in every week to the machine tools. We have plenty of UHMW.

Anyway I told him we couple probably sell a couple hundred of them as return on investment. Do you guys think that is a fair statement? What is the general opinion on what people might be willing to pay for the gear. This way we can get an idea of where to go with the project.

Also, if we go with a molding option, we would need a good gear. I do not currently have a working CD-drive, but I'll worry about that if I have to.

[Frank_fjs]

Anyway I told him we couple probably sell a couple hundred of them as return on investment. Do you guys think that is a fair statement? What is the general opinion on what people might be willing to pay for the gear. This way we can get an idea of where to go with the project.

I don't see you having any trouble selling them. A lot of people have broken CD units, which can cost up to $100, so spending a few dollars to fix an otherwise useless and expensive piece of hardware makes a lot of sense.

I'd be comfortable paying around $5 for a gear. I'd go up to $10 if the gear was a perfect fit, well constructed and guaranteed to last many years.

[Duo_R]

I dot have a tg-cd anymore but would buy some for repairs / future purchase. If we make progress on this that would be awesome.

[BlueBMW]

You must be better at milling than I was.   Tiny stuff like these gears are tough.   If I had to make an injection mold for it though...  Id probably EDM the cavity and use an ejector sleeve with a core pin.  Of course that gets costly!

What do you intend to machine them out of?

[Official Ninja]

You must be better at milling than I was.   Tiny stuff like these gears are tough.   If I had to make an injection mold for it though...  Id probably EDM the cavity and use an ejector sleeve with a core pin.  Of course that gets costly!

What do you intend to machine them out of?

If I was to mill them, I'd use UHMW. Delrin is also an option, its less gummy, much more brittle, but might work good, I dont know. Delrin does have a built in lubrication.

As for milling, we have some Cincinnati Arrows that would have no trouble doing this work. The main problem is the time, a cutter this small would need to be stepped in, running around the gear quite a few times until reaching final size.

[Marll]

I'd be interested in a gear. I've had my CD unit since about 1990-91 or so, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that gear breaks.