Many modern automotive and other applications find it necessary or at least convenient to know the front face position (or the head height) of the pinion member. This information can help to determine or verify proper build position in the final assembly. For some applications, the primary axial seating surface of the pinion member is in fact in the front, and for others, although the primary seating surface is in the back, the only accessible surface from which to verify correct build position is the front. In either case, having an on-machine front face measurement device provides the required data to support these downstream operations. It is often more cost effective for a gear producer to measure a pinion's front face position to tight tolerances than to manufacture it to tight tolerances.
To this end, Gleason provides an optional Pinion Front Face (PFF) measurement device for the 360AT. Again, including this in the original machine design has allowed it to become a robust, highly accurate device that is compatible with the widest range of applications and accommodates the full range of machine motions. Sharing space nicely with all the other machine elements, much of the mechanism is located behind the pinion face guard and is mounted to the Y-axis slide. The cylindrical ram that extends into the chamber advances and retracts hydraulically and the probe arm itself rotates into position in front of the part. The machine X-axis is used to advance the part until contact with the touch probe is made. The exact position of contact on the pinion front face is adjustable. One or multiple (distributed rotationally) measurements can be made about the face, so the runout of the surface can be known and averaged.
Two probe configurations are offered: the standard configuration (shown) presents a touch probe directly to the pinion face; the other (optional) presents a ball-end gage into the center feature of the pinion (if so designed), so that the length measurement is made only relative to this generally conical feature and not to a face. Employing the latter method means that no manufacturing cost need be put into preparing the front face for measurement, since only the internal features of the existing conical or lobed center feature are contacted.
In use, the device is calibrated to a master gage or pinion so that accurate tooling dimensions or even axis gaging is not required in order to produce accurate head height results. The resulting data can be stored with the other testing records or sent to a part marking device.
As was just seen, these two significant features--outboard part control and pinion front face measurement--greatly enhance the versatility of the Gleason 360AT Universal Gear tester. Together with other standard and optional features such as reverse-mount auto-meshing, no-tools drawrod adjustment, automatic full arbor chuck/dechuck, automatic part marking, mist collection, integrated zero-cycle-time blank seating, and others, these devices bring unequaled performance and capability to the world of testing. With a small footprint, an actual maximum gear OD capacity approaching 500 mm, and angular capability for testing gearsets with shaft angles from 0 to 360 degrees (with provisions for reverse mounting of gears when necessary), the 360AT is likely to cover your needs now and into the future.
