3D Printed PLA Gear after 2 Years? - Spur Gear Tool in Fusion360

2 years ago I printed a replacement gear for a salad spinner. So many of you asked me how it held up over the years. Today we'll find out!
I also used the Spur Gear Tool in Fusion360 to design a new replacement gear with involute teeth and this time printed it in Nylon (PA12) instead of PLA. In the end, I even used a 0.25mm nozzle to perfectly print the fine details. I show you two ways to reverse engineer the gear parameters for example the module that is an input parameter for the macro.
Old video: • 3D Printed Gear Repair...
Download the Fusion360 file for the gear: a360.co/2YobMY6
🛒 Equipment used in this video (Affiliate Links):
Original Prusa i3 Mk3S: geni.us/CNCKPrusaMk3
Fiberthree filaments: fiberthree.com/
Magigoo PA to get Nylon to stick: geni.us/mcWpD
EMSA Salad Spinner: geni.us/NDNW
Bosch PBD40 Drillpress: geni.us/tKYt
Determining gear dimensions:
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
www.salemcompany.com/cgi-bin/S...
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[@allbluedream]

We don't get enough long-term durability tests on 3d prints. This video is very much appreciated.

[@mgeorge003]

Hi, I printed 12 helical spur gears out of PLA+ for an agricultural seed planter. The gear turns very slowly and is used to grab a seed out of a hopper and drop it down a chute. So far so good.

[@grievertime]

i work in a printing factory. One of the first things that we printed was a spur gear replacing one made of wood (yes, wood) The machine was so old that there was no replacement parts. This was 3 years ago and the gear is still there, printing km of paper every day :-D Long story short, since then we printed a lot of replacement part, usually we use the PLA gears while we wait for the proper stainless steel part.

[@Anonymouspock]

The people from Ultimaker were talking about how a very large beer factory does the same thing because the printed spares are so cheap. So it's becoming a somewhat common practice.

[@clarkkent6026]

I dont know what friction you have but I 3Dprinted a laser printer fuser gear in PLA and it only lasted 1 month; then switched to ABS and lasted 6 months; then turned to Nylon and it's still working after 1 year; so PLA in my experience (and if you look at the physical properties in the specs) is no good for anything that requires constant friction; it cracks easily and wears very fast (for example it's not even good for a sliding external hard drive case!)

[@throwawayaccountm1325]

Maybe you should get and sls printer to print Metall parts ?

[@wernerhiemer406]

@@clarkkent6026 I printed some small sieves. I wish I could or had made them interlocked while stacked to reduce dust emmision. (5, 4, 3 and 2 mm)

[@michaelbujaki2462]

@@throwawayaccountm1325 The thing with SLS is that you still need to machine the part after it comes out, it just gives you a starting point closer to the finish line. With PLA spares, you can print the spare, get the part ordered in, then melt the temp help spare back into filament.

[@robertasumendi]

Thank you, there needs to be much more "gears for non-engineers" content out there.

[@lagynas]

I printed gear for car wipers from PETG half a year ago. Still works.

[@gintarasbaranauskas2035]

I use PETG too! Countless parts: levers, gears, handles, boxes and etc. Still works perfectly!

[@Andreas-gh6is]

A good way to create reference images for 2D parts is to put them on a flatbed scanner.

[@zsigmondkara]

This

[@hannesgroesslinger]

Yes! And put a ruler next to it, so it's easier to get the size correct

[@MrPashee]

Yea but most of them have very small depth of field and scanned stuff will be not in focus(

[@Andreas-gh6is]

@@MrPashee I still think that a flatbed scanner is the better choice unless you go into photogrammetry. You could also try to shoot a video from different angles and then use Blender to track points of interests and compute their 3D space...

[@pepe6666]

this is a neat idea.

[@AlexanderBurgers]

I 3d printed a gear for my lathe to get the ratio I needed to cut screw thread of the correct pitch. Works perfectly. I used PETG instead of Nylon because that's what I had available, it seemed like a better choice than PLA for the application.

[@jonathanhodel3832]

What size is that late?

[@AlexanderBurgers]

@@jonathanhodel3832 Tiny. it's an Atlas 618 (6"x18") machine from the 1950's, more or less comparable to the mini lathes of today.

[@jonathanhodel3832]

@@AlexanderBurgers ah ok, thanks! I just tried to 3d print a gear for a doughmixer, worked once and broke the 2nd time :/ guess i'll order part :)

[@ogt92fromthe1step9]

@@AlexanderBurgers I have the same lathe. And I'm here for the same reason 😁 Great little machine. Works great in my basement for small projects that I don't feel like going out to the garage to turn the heat on to run my clausing 12x48.

[@spikekent]

Hey Stefan, Superb revisit, I remember watching the original video 2 years ago. Doesn't time fly. Loved the tip with the chamfer. I will be referring back to this if I ever need to replace gears. Good to see how well the PLA stood up to the job.

[@spartan3299]

Thank you so much for including keyboard details...so few teachers understand new users struggle navigating the key combinations.

[@DelicAlmin]

You, your countyman Thomas, and Joel 3DPN are the best guys in 3D printing world. Also Chris Riley with his tutorials is worth to mention. GJ guys, I learn a lot from you

[@TheLogneo]

Dont forget Angus from Makers Muse

[@DelicAlmin]

@@TheLogneo yeah man, Angus is great guy too... Sorry MM

[@super_cyb0rg226]

"Because metric" is probably the best explanation for any machining problem. BECAUSE IT'S SENSIBLE!

[@MakilHeru]

This is your first video I have seen and loved your breakdown in fusion 360 about how you refined and set up the gear. I'm starting fusion 360 now after 10 years of using Maya since I just got a 3d printer. Definitely excited to start learning fusion now that I understand the workflow a little better.

[@inifin8]

The thickness issue you faced can be take care if by adding the backlash parameter. If gears are made perfect they tend to Jam up and therefore the thickness is reduced and backlash added to make the gears more resilient and mesh better

[@nerdipedia1142]

I absolutely love that you walked us through that and showed the circle shortcut for the gear teeth mods. I actually feel ready to tackle a gear design when I need to next. Thanks.

[@harrymartin4291]

Broke a gear and shaft on a hand held label printer at work. Used LocTite with 3mm bolt as shaft and printed gear. Still works a good as new 2 years later!

[@hyperjohn6627]

LocTite is great

[@TJ13062010]

First Time I EVER bought something from an affiliate link. ...it was the salad spinner 🤦‍♂️

[@wxfield]

Somewhere out there, someone is spending $1000+ on a Prusa to fix their $20 salad spinner after watching this video.

[@dragnet53]

IF they were smart they could go cheap and get an Anet A8.

[@wxfield]

@@dragnet53 You missed the point entirely.

[@arctic_angel7408]

wxfield lmao

[@romjab]

How do you know if someone owns a 3d printer? They get excited when something breaks

[@wernerhiemer406]

@@romjab Luckely sheet metal printing or bones printing is not possible or as easy. Or even a soul printer.

[@CNCKitchen]

Feel free to share the video on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and other social media!

[@lucky4the4turtle]

I'm liking your thumbnail

[@fliegenmann2562]

CNC Kitchen You could do a highspeed and strength test for the gears. One highspeed test for heat and friction and the other for material strength. 😬👍 PS: that gear looked pretty good but those teeth are „cut“ too deep, they are weaker as they could be... 👌

[@hyperhektor7733]

I have another fast method: i just have different gears which i know the modulus for and marked them with a metal paint marker. For example Mod 0,2 / 0,3 / 0,4 / 0,45 / 0,5 and so on . This way i can just test manually the gear in question against known gears. The correct one is which has the least noise/rattle/friction. ( you can either buy gears for this or do the math and label them with a permanent marker. For small gears i use zip bags to label them)

[@ein57ein]

GREAT VIDEO! Replicating a gear was my introduction to Fusion 360, took it on for myself and wow! what a challenge. The gear tool certainly was a lifesaver for me as well.

[@3rd_Millennium_Engineering]

Hey, Stefan! Guten tag. Thank you for taking the time in sharing this. Wow! I am going to buy my bride one of those salad spinners. I've never heard of them before and I am going to save this video to help me learn up on 3D printing.

[@BradSilcox]

Great video, loved the practical applications and always love to see new filaments. For your great test, print two matched gears and throw one on a stepper and the other on a brake, soon them up for runtime and brake hard for durability. Good luck, can't wait to see that!

[@ThunderPantz01]

This was absolutly an amazing Video and Walk through Stefan. Thank you for this. Please Keep up the Good work.

[@deceitive3338]

Excellent tutorial, thank you very much, I learned a few new tricks! Your regular videos are great but I would love to see more tutorials from you, very well explained and easy to follow. Cheers!

[@CNCKitchen]

Thank you, I'll see what I can do.

[@amoose136]

Recommend using a flat bed scanner to get reference images of flat surfaces. They don’t really have parallax error like a camera does.

[@michieljames737]

Thank you so much for this amazing step by step explanation and toutorial. You do great work Stefan!

[@tobiasworner5106]

Hey Stefan! Deine Videos sind absolut genial! Du ziehst das Ganze auf eine sehr interessante und dennoch wissenschaftliche Art auf. Deine Videos sind deutlich vorgetragen und nie langweilig. War jetzt kein Anfänger im 3D Druck, hab aber sehr viel durch dich dazu gelernt! Weiter so!

[@zalllon]

Awesome and practical content. I am completely new to all of this, with my first 3-D printer supposed to be arriving today (Bambu Carbon X1). Your channel popped up in my searches, and I like some of the practical uses that you outline beyond an expensive hobby.

[@G-REV_CHUCK]

I havent had a chance to repair any broken gears yet, but I have used the tool to make myself a small dc generator from an old dc motor that is able to charge my phone in emergencies. I was really surprised at the ease of use of the spur gear tool and I thank you for showing me how to use it! I appreciate the content! keep it coming!!

[@SuperMakeSomething]

Salatschleuder: Lass mich sterben! Stefan: Nein! 🤣 Awesome video and great tutorial! 👍

[@ThetaPower]

Thank you. Nice presentation.Very helpful tips. I had a very similar situation and used the Fusion 360 add-in too. My neighbor needed a gear stack similar to yours, but even smaller. I was still new to 3D printing and thought making it would be a fun project.I spent about two weeks on it! In the end, I made it from Taulman 910 Nylon using a 0.2 brass nozzle. It is still working on his MIG welder 3 years later. Btw, that was a great tip about compensating for elephant foot.

[@jordongingrich8913]

Thanks for showing that gear tool! Now I want to make something geared! Great video

[@Worelock1966]

Great video Stefan, great tip about the chamfer inside the gear to aid in 3d printing...I will use that in the future :)

[@CapnMizzo]

Great video Stefan. Lots of good tips and techniques.

[@3dPrintCreator]

Thank you for this video Stefan. Although I have already made gears in Fusion 360, I have learned a lot from it. By the way, I find it amazing how well the PLA has kept it if you actually use this salad dryer a few times a week.

[@marklandsaat3696]

Love the gears video, would love to see more, also printing them with smaller nozzles and detailed print settings. Looking forward to new content 👍

[@TheOtherGuybo]

Unbelievable. I was using a salad spinner today and thinking, here's something that failed for us before, because the gears failed. I also thought, this is exactly the kind of thing I would try to print. You rock!

[@soundmindtv2911]

This was super helpful. I needed this. And thanks for the lead on the nylon filament! 👍

[@Blackcloud_Garage]

Very good presentation of a complicated process. I’m trying to learn 3D printing (don’t even have a printer yet) and this kind of content is very helpful. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[@familytriate]

I printed gears for a Pasta machine which is 60 years old, it is called Pastalinda and it was a gift from a firend's mom. Now I have fee pasta since now they work. I use some internet tools to design the ration since I was using Rhinoceros, and just needed the profile. IT works great and stands the abuse

[@unclebobsbees4899]

Stefan Thank you so much. As an F360 neophyte I just learned an immense amount of info.

[@hocinebouzina4476]

Just perfect 👌 Thanks for every detail

[@rolandgeter534]

A very nicely made video. I'm exploring all the possible uses for my 3D printer and this is extremely helpful. Thank you, tschuss

[@avejst]

Nice walkthrough I did learned something to day, as always👍😀

[@PhG1961]

Awesome video and excellent explained. Now even I can print gears ! Thnxs for sharing !

[@vanutsteen]

I really liked learning more about designing mechanical components!

[@DerHeilendeLotus]

Instead of the chamfer on the inside, you can also use what I've seen referred to as "sacrificial bridging" - make the hole completely closed for one layer's worth of height, the rest prints on top of that, and then you can drill it out.

[@nikkibaugher542]

GREAT mechanical engineering overview!!! Great job!

[@das250250]

As always another great display of skills . Ty

[@Mrthekiller578]

printed a nylon gear for an oil pump in a rotary die cutting machine at work, still holding up after 1 year

[@h3Xh3Xh3X]

Thanks for the Fusion 360 lesson. I had fun following along!

[@luckylarry5112]

I make hard to find or expensive car parts for local autobody repair shops in town. The most often requested broken part is electric window gears or guides. Generally you have to buy an entire assembly sometimes in the several hundred dollar category. After a $40 dollar nylon printed gear, they are up and running again. thanks for the video:)

[@medienmond]

Wahnsinn, wie sich Dein Englisch seit den ersten Videos verbessert hat. Weiterhin viel Erfolg... Impressive how your english improved since the fist videos. Good luck in the Future...

[@TheVexCortex]

For the wear tests, do a couple of gearboxes, One high rpm to low rpm, as a winch or crane, load it until it breaks, filament that pulled the most weight wins. One low to high rpm, with a fan to provide a constant load, drive the input faster until it breaks, filament that survived the highest rpm wins. If you're up for some suffering, you could try acme thread.

[@km5405]

fan is not constant load. its curve goes up with its speed roughly quadratically.

[@TheVexCortex]

@@km5405 The load is constant, as in, constantly applied, as in, there isn't a time where there is no load.

[@broodro0ster]

That's an awesome gear tutorial! Thanks for this :-)

[@vanessawei7144]

Omg I fixed the exact same mechanism on my salad spinner about a year ago and just found this video. I was so confused seeing this little gear on your thumbnail. That is 100% engineered to break so that people need to buy a new spinner

[@trkoo]

You are my favorite creator by far. Your engineering approach and focus on detail is great! I am curious which brand and type filement did you use to print the gear?

[@CNCKitchen]

That was PA12 Lite from Fiberthree but that's currently not available for hobbyists.

[@LiquiDirt3D]

I've replaced gears on my old 3d printer extruder and then made my own gears to replace the extruder all together. I have a video on the old 3d printer that was over 10 years ago and before the video, the gears worked just fine so they last a very long time. they were PLA only and I had no issues using them for this. I have since moved on to the CR10S pro and thus did not need the old printer anymore and well it has gone to printer heaven lol. but I hope for the best with your salad spinner. I love the work you do and please keep it up.

[@garagemonkeysan]

Great video. Good walkthrough. : )

[@patrickmaartense7772]

danke schae stefan.. was waiting for something like this to come up !

[@christophermaschek]

Printed a replacement gear for my Littermaid. The nylon had issues with layer adhesion, but the PLA worked perfectly.

[@izakoliver]

Nice Video Stefan!

[@magomat6756]

This was great, i wish there are more videos about gears

[@bulletproofpepper2]

Thanks for sharing, great work ! I have made gears with my 3D printer but for pre-made work file. May need to make a special gear for a project.

[@antonwinter630]

great info. im a newbie to 360, so knowing it has a hidden gear menu is very useful

[@dewexdewex]

That was very useful. Many thanks.

[@zaprodk]

For those that wondered what RMB is as well, it's lingo for "Right mouse Button" - I had to stop the video and wonder for a second what that was :D

[@BillyF1289]

Great info. I've used the spur gear tool many times. You can also edit the timeline to redefine the sketch plane the gear is created on. I wish there was a worm gear tool in Fusion 360. I'm pleasantly surprised that PLA gear has lasted so long.

[@GCguru]

Probably the best fusion gear video ever...every step not only shown, but spoken in real time. I've avoided gears entirely until seeing this. Would be awesome to see the process of designing and adding a battery powered electric motor to the salad tosser and ditch the pull cord. It would be cool, plus the elements required to do it would translate to thousands of other projects like r/c boats/cars/aircraft, robotics and even the broken gears and support structure in my stupid bmw seat that keeps breaking :-)

[@danman32]

Excellent video. I learned about 360 gears with Paul McWhorter's latest 360 class, this added some details, especially about replicating an existing gear. I have an old Sharp front load turntable whose tray load gear broke so I'm planning on printing a new one.

[@TheWoodWorkingPilot]

Love this video!

[@VincentFischer]

the channel name gets more and more literally

[@garyseaman6105]

Thank you. I really enjoy your videos. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.

[@68pishta68]

I made an unobtainable head rotation gear for a classic Sony auto reverse cassette deck. The material I used was PLA and the gear was designed using a macro created for 3D printing. The teeth did not mesh properly after I put the gear into use so I used a heat gun to gently heat the gear while I cycled the mechanism and this lapped the gear teeth perfectly to the rack. It has worked flawlessly for 3 years now and I believe this is the easiest way to set the gear lash when using PLA.

[@onicknacko]

Awesome video! Cheers

[@UndercoverFerret404]

Great video !

[@CallmeSam00]

Lettuce praise these durable gears!

[@phinok.m.628]

You missed a tooth with the bottom chamfer (17:35)... Maybe it would have been better to compensate in the slicer after all. :P

[@alexanderthomas2660]

He did get it right on the final gear though!

[@phinok.m.628]

@@alexanderthomas2660 Yeah, I figure he noticed eventually. I guess it doesn't matter much on a "test print", I mean, it wouldn't even really be that bad the final print. Just not perfect...

[@GallusInsuber]

We have fixed a similar spur gear in an Ariete Gratì cheese grater by printing a replacement part with our Creality CR-10s, using standard PLA. Still doing good after 9 months.

[@burntkat]

Excellent video. This is exactly the sort of thing I bought a 3d printer and am learning CAD for. In my case it will be for RC car and boat parts. I've also found a few things around the house I want to tackle

[@iteerrex8166]

Like many here I'm not interested to print anime characters and vases. So this is great.. this type of applications and tests. A simple test rig would be to turn with a motor a gear which is in mesh with a 2nd gear. The 2nd gear could be under measurable frictional tension, and/or be turned on and off with an Arduino, and so on.

[@marcus_w0]

Nice Video. Nice new CI, btw.

[@laharl2k]

I never made a replacement gear, but i did make a few 16 teeth MXL pulleies for a printer and they worked great in pla with a 0.25 nozzle. As for the gears, the gears in my printers are all in pla/petg and they work 24/7 no problem and almost 2 years and barely any wear. Once the gears wear in and the lines vanish and the surface becomes smooth, they barely ever wear the downside is the temperature resistance, so i use petg for the small gear that goes on the extruder motor.

[@steinaune]

Great education, so helpful, thanks a lot 🎉👍

[@ianyang6520]

nicely done!!

[@DennisMurphey]

Outstanding thank You I have a need for a gear that is driven by a worm. I hope Fusion 360 has that too. Great Video!

[@elucky51]

Thank you for this vid. Helped a lot.

[@hugoandre96]

Thank you so much. Always was such a pain making gears by hand in fusion 360

[@powcar91]

I always wonder how you would make a gear in f360, thanks for sharing.

[@forrestallison1879]

Elephant foot? Oh it's 3 years old. Add to the long list of things Prusa has fixed. Awesome video, some nice tricks like cross section view I wasn't aware of

[@BriansBasicStuff]

My first (and only) self-designed 3d part was a gear much like yours but for a battery-powered automatic coin-sorter (very useful when raising money for youth sports teams). I found an online tool to generate the gears, merged them in blender, and managed to print them with the machine at the office, I think with a 0.6 nozzle. It took a number of tries and clean-up with a sharp knife but is still working 8y later. I fixed a design-flaw at the same time: the gear barely meshed with the worm driving it which is why the original one wore out.

[@balthizarlucienclan]

You could use a variable speed drill in order to see how the parts perform over long periods of use without actually taking a long time. You could also apply some load to the work gear that you are turning with your test gear and that should allow for some resistance.

[@fredgenius]

I printed some M2 gears for my lathe several years ago, they are still in very good condition!

[@haidarsyriaismyheart5945]

Es ist mein erstes Mal hier und ich habe deinen Kanal geliebt👍❤️🌹

[@voltage3d469]

Yeah, the moment we all got our first 3d printer I'm confident we all thought "I can make new parts but better"

[@elmariachi5133]

I knew they existed, but now I finally know what salad spinners are good for!

[@Sarwiz1]

GREAT VIDEO, thank you

[@GurlNextDoor150]

Ready for year 3 review!

[@faramarzjahaninia9711]

thank you .. its so helpfull for me and everyone

[@jeffbanfieldsflwr3537]

Tolles Video.

[@stevenrais9360]

Good to know. I made a replacement actuator gear for a car AC a few months back. Was wondering if it would last. Thank you