Planetary Gear Preventive Maintenance

[innkeeper]

Ah, i think i confused my terms...ok then i'll give that a go..... so the gear just pulls off the shaft then?
i've ordered it off the site.
i've got some blue loctite.. will that work?

[jimc]

No blue wont cut it. At a min you need red BUT you should really use retaining compound. Its not for threads. Its for smooth surfaces like holding a bearing in a hole or something in a smooth shaft. The original gear you can heat up a bit and pull off with some pliers. The metal its made of should be really soft.

[innkeeper]

Thanks, ok, i'll hit up napa for it tomarrow.

[innkeeper]

so I got both a new pinion gear and sourced a new stepper as backup... and am currently running on the new stepper.

oh btw on that, seems kaysan has several models of many of there steppers that are relatively identical, but are just made by different manufacturers.
what they told me is they give each manufacturer their own model number even if they spec the same.

I sourced a 1040229 which is a different manufacturer for kaysan then the 1040222, they actually cross reference in Kansans site, but, they are slightly different. though seems to work just fine.
I replaced the grease before I even plugged it in.

on the old one, .. trying to replace the pinion,
I tried applying heat and prying it off, but that just isn't working. enough heat is making it into the shaft, you can actually see the temper changing on he shaft.
I was thinking of putting a deep slice or two into the gear before attempting applying heat again to assist espansion.

but then this begs a different question... if I have to apply this much heat getting it off, wont I change the temper of the new gear heating up the new once tiring to put it on??

at this point I still want to do this just to have a backup stepper...but .. am I approaching this wrong??

[jimc]

the pinion is just held on the shaft with loctite retaining compound. put the pinion gear in a vise, heat it then just tap the shaft with a small punch and a hammer. should con=me right off. once its off you can remove and remaining loctite from the shaft so its clean. the new pinion will just slide on the shaft loosly. you need retaining compound to lock the new one in place

[innkeeper]

gave that a try in a vice just now, just ended up just mushrooming the shaft... tried prying it, that was a bad move on my part as bent the shaft. oh well, it was worth a try anyway.
thanks though..
i'm up an alive with the new stepper so, no harm.

[innkeeper]

i have noticed on all my extruder motors there is a little side play in the shaft and you can wiggle the drive gear.

just a side note one the one thing i did notice with the 1040229 over the 1040222 was no side play in the shaft. it could be that its just because its new..I'll re check this after i get some time on the new stepper and see if it changes.

[jdacal]

I hadn't had a chance to update this since my original post. But I did open up the stepper to check grease level after about 3 weeks. I was surprised at the amount of grease that just disappeared. So I probably need a better grade grease. However it was still well lubricated and some of the grease had gotten into nooks and crannies.

One of my concerns had been that even though the grease was not escaping out the front bearing seal that it might be running back into the the space between the motor and the planetary gear housing, but that was not the case as you can see in the picture of the motor with the planetary gearbox removed. The center pinion is holding up fine. Can't tell it from the picture but I couldn't see any wear on it.

Based on this short experiment I will be checking the grease and wear about every 2 months. With a better grade grease I'm sure you could extend that substantially but for the moment I'm stuck with this big tub I bought.

This was the original amount of grease I put in about 3 weeks before the rest of the pictures were taken.

2015-07-24 19.35.08_1.jpg (197.71 KiB) Viewed 11251 times

This is how much grease (much darker now) was left after about 3 weeks, but still everything was being lubricated.

2015-08-21 17.46.18_1.jpg (233.07 KiB) Viewed 11251 times

A lot of the grease had settled in between the nooks and crannies in between the planetary gears were it was not doing anything but sitting there.

2015-08-21 17.46.30_1.jpg (242.75 KiB) Viewed 11251 times

This is the motor with the planetary gear box removed. I wanted to check if any grease was seeping in between the two pieces but it was completely dry. I had very little seepage from the front seal, so just need to put a little less grease this time.

2015-08-21 17.47.55_1.jpg (270.89 KiB) Viewed 11251 times