Gear hobbing produces gear teeth by rotating a cylindrically shaped cutter called a “hob” (hence the term gear hobbing) depicted in the gear hobbing machine interface below. The hob can be single-threaded, depending on how many teeth per revolution should be generated.
Spur gears are most often fabricated with this method, although a variety of other gears — like cycloid gears, helical gears, worm gears, ratchets and sprockets — are all made by hobbing. A well-designed hob is critical, especially when cutting a complex geometry, and this process typically does not work for internal gears. Similar to gear shaping, hobbing has setup advantages, but only for exterior cuts since the hob is cutting the outside of the gear blanks.
This is a lens we did for a famous automotive lighting company. Before they reached out to BESTA, they did testing with numbers of other prototype companies. The parts they received looked brilliant at first glance, but as soon as they go for light simulation testing, none of them were able to hit the mark.
The reason? Well, simply because the prototypes from these other services were not accurate enough. So, they thought they would have to outsource from Europe. However, when they approached the BESTA team, the company soon discovered that they had finally found a service provider that could meet their needs.
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