FCGear Workbench

Introduction
The FCGear Workbench is an external workbench for manufacturing different types of gears and worm gears in FreeCAD. The parametric modelling allows the required geometries to be changed at any time. For example, by changing a few parameters, the involute gear becomes either a spur gear, helical gear or double helical gear.

In order for the results from FC Gear to be usable, a certain amount of basic knowledge about the different types of gearing is required. Module, pitch diameter or root diameter are common terms and should therefore be known.

In conjunction with 3D printing, home users now have the opportunity to design and produce gears and worm gears according to their own personal ideas and, if necessary, to adapt them to the constructional conditions.

Before FCGear Workbench can be started, it must be installed (how it is done see below at ). After installation, the tools are available in the toolbar.


 * [[Image:FCGear_Drop-down-menu_example-en.png]]

Involute Gear

 * [[Image:Involute-Gear example.png]]

Involute Rack

 * [[Image:Involute-Rack_example.png]]

Cycloide Gear

 * [[Image:Cycloid-Gear example_1.png]]

Bevel Gear

 * [[Image:Bevel-Gear_example.png]]

Worm Gear

 * [[Image:Worm-Gear_example.png]]

Crown Gear

 * [[File:Crown-Gear example.png]]

Timing Gear and Lantern Gear

 * [[File:Timing+Latern-gear example.png]]

Toolbar

 * FCGear_InvoluteGear.svg FCGear InvoluteGear Creates an Involute gear
 * FCGear_InvoluteRack.svg FCGear InvoluteRack Creates an Involute rack
 * FCGear_CycloideGear.svg FCGear CycloideGear Creates a Cycloide gear
 * FCGear_BevelGear.svg FCGear BevelGear Creates a Bevel gear
 * FCGear_WormGear.svg FCGear WormGear Creates a Worm gear
 * FCGear_CrownGear.svg FCGear CrownGear Creates a Crown gear
 * FCGear_TimingGear.svg FCGear TimingGear Creates a Timing gear
 * FCGear_LanternGear.svg FCGear LanternGear Creates a Lantern gear

Automatic installation
The recommended method of installation as of v0.17 is via the Addon Manager. It can be found in the

Manual installation
If there is a necessity to manually install this workbench the following instructions are provided to do so:

Linux

 * link or copy the folder into
 * link or copy the folder into

Windows
Tested on (7/8/8.1/10) (From GitHub)


 * download ZIP-archive by clicking on button in top right corner
 * go to FreeCAD-Macro-Folder (inside FreeCAD, choose "Edit > Preferences > General > Macro to see Macro Path)
 * if you haven't changed the standard settings, it should be "C:\Users\Your_Windows_User_Name\AppData\Roaming\FreeCAD"
 * \appdata is a HIDDEN folder, so you may have to change the settings of the file explorer to see it
 * create a sub-folder called "FCGear"
 * make sure to copy files and folders EXACTLY as shown above to the just created sub-folder
 * restart FreeCAD and the workbench should appear in the pull-down menu
 * within FreeCAD you can choose "Tools > Customize > Workbenches" to enable/disable workbenches

MacOSX
See instructions for Linux above

Links to Gear WB

 * Workbench Wiki: https://github.com/looooo/FCGear/wiki
 * FreeCAD Wiki: Macro_FCGear and Bevel gear
 * FreeCAD Forum: http://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=12968
 * Tutorials:
 * Videos:
 * Files:
 * Report bugs: Please report bugs at https://github.com/looooo/FCGear/issues

Other useful links

 * [[Image:PartDesign_InvoluteGear.svg|24px|PartDesign_InvoluteGear]] PartDesign InvoluteGear: This tool allows for the creation of a 2D profile of an Involute gear. This 2D profile is fully parametric, and can be padded with the PartDesign Pad feature.
 * External Workbenches: A list of all current external workbenches of FreeCAD
 * Macros recipes
 * The cycloidal gearing (german)
 * Involute gearing (german)