I don't believe this is the case. Standard helical gears still need an involute tooth form as described upon the end face of the gear. It's the same as a straight cut gear, just twisted.

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First of all, you'll need the appropriate bit. Tungsten carbide is the go-to for most metal drilling, and such bits are usually also designed to drill efficiently into metal and remove the waste. You can probably also find diamond-tipped bits which will also be good at biting into the metal and removing it. Your average drill bit for hardwoods won't be up to the task; it won't bite, will dull quickly, and will bind easily.

Hi! In the end, the gear has to be machined, right? Or, are you printing the gear? If the gear has to be machined, it will require sweeping a volume to accurately represent the cut. Traditional 2D profile cut simply does not cut it.

Don't quote me on it, but to my understanding the gear cutter profiles are manufactured to take this into consideration. The cutter's line of action is set at the pitch angle and the milling proceeds along the gear's axis while the gear is rotated in a coordinated fashion.

This seems to do the trick. Do you have any mathematical break through of the formulas? or a procedure of some kind on how to reach these formulas.

Assuming you mean an electric powered drill, it may have the guts. A 1/4 inch hole is no problem, but a 1/2 inch hole will take more work. Clear the chips from the hole as you drill. I think the biggest issue with a hand held drill is if you will keep the drill neatly vertical. This will impact the quality of the holes you drill, if you do not.

Think of it like a stack of very thin slices with each slice rotated slightly from the adjacent slice - a stack of coins, if you will. The basic profile remains the same, but the completed stack is helical.

Keep your bits sharp. This will be important. A lubricant is also important, both for drilling and for the thread tapping process. For aluminum, you can use WD40 or 3 in one oil for this purpose, or a kerosene based lubricant that contains some oil. You will be surprised how much better a drill bit cuts with some lubricant, as well as in cutting threads.

I have generated a gear set using inventor. Now I would like to 3d print the gears. I have uesd the export tooth shape to get the true tooth profile. now I am attempting to use the coil feature to generate the helical tooth. The problem im running into is in the coil tool I can only give it a Revolution and height dimension. The hight is the width of the gear, but I am having a problem converting the helix angle to the "Revolution" perameter. I have read other posts and they say that it is Helix angle / 360. I have tried that and then compared it to the original gear generated by inventor and it is not even close. I need to do this on in internal gear and match it to an external gear. I ahve attached the generated gears i'm working with.

Hi! This is a very interesting discussion. If I understood the requirement correctly, the correct cut has to be done via sweeping a volume (like how it would be cut in real world). Inventor 2019 does have the ability to create smooth variable-pitch and variable-radius helical curve. But, Inventor 2019 is not yet able to sweep a volume. We are working on a robust solution which will allow users to pick a volume as a profile to sweep along various paths. If you are interested, please sign up Inventor Beta program (https://bit.ly/InventorBeta).

If I understand your project correctly, you'll be wanting these holes to have flat bottoms? That's tough without a milling machine, however, it can be done on aluminum with a mototool (preferably variable speed), a flat topped tool steel cutting head, and plenty of time.

The last point of concern is not overstressing the drill's motor. This is usually just a matter of not pressing too hard, and letting the drill do the work in its sweet time. But, it also generally means having a drill with the chutzpah to handle the job. As was said in the comments there are plenty of hand drills with enough torque for this kind of work, but your $30 range is probably not in that class.

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So I have learned a little more trying to figure this out. In other examples people have been using the coil feature with the revolution and height setting. But what I have noticed is if you enter a number for revolution say thats close to the helix you want ( I have not figured out how to coil the correct helix angle yet) and then you change the height, it changes the helix angle. So I belive the correct method is to use the Pitch and height setting. Now I need to figure out how to calculate pitch based off of a helix angle. When you use pitch and height, then change the height it will just continue the same angle without distorting it.

Hi! This is a very interesting discussion. If I understood the requirement correctly, the correct cut has to be done via sweeping a volume...

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I'm making some baseplates in my home for a custom camera system and I'll need to be drilling many holes into plates of aluminum. I'm planning to use 6061 aluminum and need to drill holes anywhere from 1/4" to 1/2". And later will be tapping them.

A problem with a hand drill for metal is getting the hole in exactly the right place. A good solution is to use a center punch. This puts a small dimple, centered at the location you want to drill. The drill bit will now get started more easily without skating around the surface.

Here's a video showing tips for using a hand drill to cut through 3/16" steel. With thick aluminum, I usually start with an 1/8" pilot hole, take that to 1/4", then 3/8", then 1/2". With an inch to go through, you may also need to use a 5/16" bit to ensure a nice round hole at the end. When you ask a drill to cut too much metal at a time it will bend, wiggle and give you a poorly shaped hole. As you get to the bigger bit sizes, you'll need to slow your drill down. This looks like a decent little speed table.

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Metal drilling usually requires use of an oil or other drilling fluid to cool the bit. This would make drilling by hand a two-person job; one to hold the drill steady, the other to apply the drilling fluid.