Is it the feud as old as time, where the electrical engineers think they are better than the mechanical engineers? 
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Thanks for the support! 
KHK are great so much good resources on their website, Iāve learnt a lot from them.
It was a joke, admittedly at the beginning I thought designing a gear drive would be easy, but quicky found out itās not, been messing around in CAD for months now lol. I mainly started this build to improve my knowledge of mech-e and get better at using SolidWorks. I spend all day designing electronics at work, so in my free time I find it more interesting to do mechanical projects.
Iām definitely going to need some advice from the experience mech-e people on here. I have pretty much finished the first CAD design now, and will upload some drawings and renders soon.
I have questions about helical gear axial thrust force, tolerances, material section, and testing. Iām hoping this build thread will help me iron out any potential issues with my design, that I have not thought about.
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I would caution against this. Unfortunately some folks are quite morally grey when it comes to ideas/concepts. If you intend to commercialise this itās better to be ambiguous, sadly.
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gl and yea there are some corrupt people on this forum so be careful ^
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From a completely uneducated and totally practical point of viewā¦ #fuckhelical
Noise is good, straight cuts are simple
The current trend of everything being helical kind of shits me. I like straights.
But that said, I wish you the best of luck! Definitely an ambitious project and I commend you for your efforts 
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Thanks for the heads up. I think I will have to keep the details ambiguous unfortunately.
I see youāve used a lot of different types of gear drives, I would like to pick your brain about the pros and cons of each design. We are both based in the UK, would you be interested in helping me test the 1st prototypes?
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Thanks moon, definitely not going to include too much deign detail on here now.
ahaha It would of made my life a lot easier using straight cut gears to be honest 
But Iām kind of doing it for the design challenge, I want to get better at mechanical design.
Thanks for the support mate
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Hi dude
I really appreciate the offer. Apex are using Boardnamics gear drives on our completes at the moment and Iād like to avoid any conflict of interest if thatās possible so unfortunately Iāll have to decline. Interesting project though and Iāll be keeping my eye on it, good luck!
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I can totally appreciate that aspect. Nothing like a challenge! Kudos dude, iāll definitely be following with interest.
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with @glyphiks on this one #fuckhelical, although most helical drives can work with straight cut.
there are a few UK based riders, whoād be able to put some miles on em
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No more Moon drives ? 
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Yes! I definitely need to swap my moon drive bolts to titanium or something because they got rusty real fast!
I donāt see how itās a conflict of interest unless Apex are designing their own gear drives. Youāre just a customer like the rest of us, no?
Edit: actually I guess if you already have a large stock of BN drives then it would be in your best business interests do not promote alternatives. nevermind
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Hello mate. That totally understandable, I donāt want to step on anyone toes. Thanks for the support 
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Update! CAD design and specs
Iāve gone through a lot of CAD revisions over the past few months, and this is the design Iāve settled on. I tried to design it to be as compact as possible, without sacrificing strength, sealing or a minimum gear thickness of 15mm. I think I have met all my design aims.
Hardwearing and rugged
- Properly thought-out gear design: obeyed the minimum number of teeth rule, chose appropriate values for helix angle and pressure angle etcā¦
- Hardened steel gears that should outlast your board.
- All metal construction: all parts will be machined out of aluminium 6061 and the truck clamp will be machined from stainless steel SS304.
- Double bearing support for drive gear and hub mount.
Watertight and corrosion resistant
- Every external interface within the gear drive assembly where water or dirt can get in, is either sealed using a gasket or a rotary shaft seal.
- All exposed bolts and components are made from corrosion resistant materials, so no rusting problems on this gear drive.
Youāre not going to be able to submerge the gear drive in water, but it should handle muddy puddles and showers pretty damn well.
Rapid wheel changes
The wheel hub bolts will be extended and slot into the gar drive hub mount, then the hub securing bolt on the truck will be the only thing you need to undo to remove the wheel.
I will make a video of this process after I finish building the 3D printed prototype.
Affordable
RRP Ā£300-Ā£350: I have created a full BOM and got manufacturing quotes, this RRP is totally doable.
Compatible with common trucks and hubs
- Trucks: MBS Matrix II, Trampa, Apex Air.
- Hubs: MBS Rockstar and Fivestar; Trampa Superstar, Megastar and Phatladz.
I have designed for the MBS Matrix II trucks, but still need to design truck clamps for Trampa and Apex Air trucks.
Next steps
- Build and test a 3D printed prototype with production hardware (bolts, bearings, seals etcā¦).
- Design truck clamps for Trampa and Apex trucks.
- Manufacture and test a preproduction metal prototype.
- Thorough gear drive stress testing.
- First production batch of 20 gear drive pairs.
Does anyone have drawings for Trampa or Apex Air Trucks or are there any folks from the UK that are happy to let me borrow a truck for few weeks?
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I have two production boards, both use black bolts because they look nice, but they all the rusted within a month of using them. I think stainless or titanium is the way to go with bolts, especially for EMTB where they will be exposed to mud and water.
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Looking at the drawing I think itās not going to be very silent. This helix angle is not that big, right?
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I chose a helix angle of 15Ā°, from what I have been reading helix angles from 5Ā° to 20Ā° are recommend for single helix gears. Although, I have seen gear drives with helix angles ranging from 10Ā° to 30Ā° 
so I think I might have to experiment with different helix angles when testing to see how they perform and how noisy they are.
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Iām going to ask what everyoneās thinking, whatās the difference between these and boardnamics drives? Why choose one over the other
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