Mechanical & Motion Systems

Automate 2024 Product Spotlight: KHK Offers a Multitude of Metric Gears

June 4, 2024

KHK has been making metric gears for nearly 90 years. Gear manufacturing requires proper material selection, cutting machines, lathes, rack panels, hobbing machines, teeth shape measurement and more.

Sharon Spielman

Related To: KHK USA

Specializing in metric gearing, KHK USA has been producing its product line since 1935. Brian Dengel, gearing executive at KHK, showed us the metric gears for industrial automation applications at Automate 2024. There were rack and pinions in a range of lengths and pitch as well as spur, bevel and worm gears in an assortment of sizes and configurations on display.

The production process required for gear manufacturing covers a lot of ground, including cutting of materials with cutting machines, processing of materials with lathes, cutting of cylindrical gear teeth with hobbing machines, cutting of rack teeth with rack panels, cutting of internal gear teeth with gear shapers, deburring, blackening, and more. Other processes such as injection molding, sintering, rolling and casting are also used. The gears are finished with polishing, tempering, surface processing, teeth shape measurement and examination with 3D measurement devices.

The company also offers free software for gear calculation and gear drafting. With a few known parameters, these programs can help design the best gear geometry for each unique application.

About the Author

Sharon Spielman | Technical Editor, Machine Design

As Machine Design’s technical editor, Sharon Spielman produces content for the brand’s focus audience—design and multidisciplinary engineers. Her beat includes 3D printing/CAD; mechanical and motion systems, with an emphasis on pneumatics and linear motion; automation; robotics; and CNC machining.

Spielman has more than three decades of experience as a writer and editor for a range of B2B brands, including those that cover machine design; electrical design and manufacturing; interconnection technology; food and beverage manufacturing; process heating and cooling; finishing; and package converting.

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