Change Wheel Holder

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

I seem to recall an article, or maybe just a note, on 3D printing a holder for lathe change wheels. Does anyone know where I might have seen it?  Thanks.

John

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

When you are searching, also use ‘change gear holder’ or change gear stand’.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256620667585

There are a limited number of sites where 3D models are shared. Thingiverse is perhaps the best known.

Draw up a list of those sites and use thier search function.

If you believe it to be an article in a printed magazine of this stable, use the searchable index that is provided and search that. People take a lot of time and trouble to compile the index.

It would be useful to state the spec. of the gears you wish to hold. The Myford one, for 20DP by fives would not fit 1 MOD gears.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

I use a large exhaust valve to put the wheels on as a stand. I have plenty anybody want one ? Noel.

[Nigel BennettParticipant @nigelbennett69913]

Mine’s a simple piece of wooden dowel in chunk of plywood!

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Google “thingiverse change gear”. But a board with 3 pegs is hardly difficult to make and gives you something to challenge kids with sorting them in the lowest number of moves.

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

John,

As above, it’s not at all a difficult exercise.  The one pointed to by DC31k is very pretty, I’ll admit, but the one I made for (some of) my change wheels is much simpler:

These are gears for a 7×14 mini lathe. The two pinion gears on the lower left are from the thread dial gauge. There are two other larger gears which complete the set that would easily be accommodated by enlarging the base, but as this was only intended to store the gears long term, I didn’t bother.  They all now languish unused in a drawer since I fitted an electronic lead screw.

I didn’t put it on my Thingiverse account because it won’t accept Alibre CAD files and it needs to be easily modified to suit various gears sizes

John

 

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

This page on Printables has a few variations

Happy Printing

John

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

Google “thingiverse change gear”. But a board with 3 pegs is hardly difficult to make and gives you something to challenge kids with sorting them in the lowest number of moves.

Apparently something that children master easily but “AI” finds nearly impossible.

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

Thanks for the replies.  Thinking it was in one of our mags. I had searched all the indexes for ME, MEW, and EIM with every search criteria I could think of with no results. Perhaps it was in my dreams!  I’ve been given a printer by my son and have thought many times of making something as I am getting tired of rummaging around in the drawer under the lathe for them and figured this might be a good exercise. It would be for Myford gears plus 2×21 teeth. Will check out the links provided. Thanks.

Johnj

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

I have rather a lot of them when it comes to Myford change gears, I use a steel rod held in an old 3 jaw chuck to hold them.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Here’s mine:

The overall design could have done with a little more forethought:

The box for the gearbox metric conversion set was better planned:

Rod

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

Hi Phil P,

Must make it interesting when you need the one at the bottom !

I have only three or four for my Craftsman lathe, so storing them is not a problem, I just keep them on a stud inside the rear cover.

Never knew there were so many changewheels required for some lathes.

[larry phelan 1]

On larry phelan 1 Said:

Never knew there were so many changewheels required for some lathes.

My Myford S7 was second hand and had been converted to a gearbox so came with the standard set of gears plus the gearbox metric conversion set.  However, for most metric screw cutting I use the 33/34 fudge.  The gears did come in useful though when I wanted a long lead for cutting helical gears.

[larry phelan 1]

On larry phelan 1 Said:

Never knew there were so many changewheels required for some lathes.

They don’t. Phil has them for the same machine I have them – they are change gears for a gear hobber. Here are mine.

[Phil P]

On Phil P Said:

I have rather a lot of them when it comes to Myford change gears, I use a steel rod held in an old 3 jaw chuck to hold them.

Impressive!

 

Jimb

[Phil P]

On Phil P Said:

I have rather a lot of them when it comes to Myford change gears, I use a steel rod held in an old 3 jaw chuck to hold them.

Now if you had two more chucks and steel rods you could totally baffle all the AIs with the most difficult Tower of Hanoi ever…

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

Pete
These are Myford change wheels, I have a similar amount for my Mikron gear hobber.

Truth is I have never used any of the change wheels apart from the 33 & 34 for cutting metric threads.
My late father made a lot of them just for something to dccupy him when his health was failing.
He adapted the Alexander milling machine to work as a Sunderland gear shaper, and thes were the results.

[Pete RimmerParticipant @peterimmer30576]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Gotcha Phil. Sometimes the best tonic is simply having something to do. My dad started building a Jinty that he had no hope of ever completing but it gave him purpose and that was good enough.</p>
Ironically, Myford changewheels are 20dp and Mikron ones are 1.25mod and they are so close that they will mesh and run together perfectly acceptably for indexing.

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

Having looked at the references that were kindly provided above, none were quite what I wanted so I have decided to re-invent the wheel and designed my own version. Interesting exercise as the last time I used a CAD drawing  program was AuroCAD in the ’80s on  a DOS 3.1 machine. Now whether it is printable I don’t know!

John

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

I finally got the printer given to me by my son working although it still will not connect to my computer, but I can load print files to it via an SD card.
Although it has probably been done before, having got fed up with brushing the swarf out of the lead screw threads, I decided, as a first trial project, to make a swarf guard to replace the Myford rather ineffectual one.
I also drew up and printed a small change wheel holder to check the concept of my idea for the Myford gears. I tried filling the recessed numbers with paint to make them stand out but it wasn’t very successful as you can see, the paint wicked out in between the print layers.
Here are some pictures of my efforts so far, still have a lot to learn. I don’t think I have the printer settings optimized yet either.

John

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

You could also try this as it covers the rack as well

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

After many trials with small test pieces and various settings to get the printer settings optimized I decided to risk it and to print my gear holder design. It came out reasonably well, not cosmetically perfect, but good enough for its intended use. I forgot the thin boss on the inside of the fine gear cluster 30 tooth gear so had to do some butchery to make it fit.
The numbers could also have been slightly deeper, would have made filling them with paint a little easier. I have modified the original files to reflect this if I decide to make another, which I doubt as it took just under 29 hours to print!

Also made a dust cover for it, took two attempts as I forgot to add supports and the curved front edge didn’t print very well. Second attempt was not much better in-spite of the supports, needs a re-think, will do for now.

John

With the dust cover installed.

 

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