Newcastle-based gear experts, Dontyne Systems, have announced the completion of the their first test rig. This was made possible by the great effort of the Dontyne Gears team based at Washington from design to installation within a year.
In a welcome break from the raft of negative business news, the Dontyne Gears team have announced the ‘installation and pass-off of our new Back-To-Back test rig developed in collaboration with Reece Innovation and Dontyne Systems.’
Dontyne Gears was formed by Dr Mike Fish in 2013, seven years after the establishment of Dontyne Systems itself, to address a requirement in the gear industry to facilitate small testing programs for specialist companies. In doing so, they set out to utilise all modern techniques for both Computer Aided Design (CAD) and production equipment.
The new rig ‘can can evaluate the potential of various conditions from materials such as PM and plastic, and non-involute profiles.’
Already, a number of organisations from across the UK, Germany and Japan have expressed an interest in work programs using the equipment.
In addition, Dontyne Systems has recently announced the appointment of two new programmers ‘to help with the increasing demands on development time for the Gear Production Suite and other applications.’
Alexei Holgate joins the firm as Lead Software Development, having built up a great deal of experience in Application Development, 3D Computation, and MMVM design patterns.
James Lees joins as a recent graduate from Newcastle University. His specialisms include software development, machine learning and cyber security.
The aim, according to Dontyne Systems, is for the new recruits to ‘allow us to streamline existing products and start work on the next generation of this software, which will represent an improvement in user experience and take advantage of modern technology offering new approaches to engineering.’
Writing in The Parliamentary Review in 2019, co-founder Dr Mike Fish spoke about the challenge of innovating with such an old form of technology:
‘The principles of gearing have been well understood for thousands of years and it is therefore easy to assume, even by companies involved in mechanical power transmission, that there is nowhere left to go with this technology. Gear and gearbox manufacturers are under a lot of pressure to meet stringent demands in gear quality, efficiency and conformance to exacting design standards.
‘Fortunately, we are at a crucial time in the industry when technology can permit a step change in capability to improve product and performance.’
This summer’s developments certainly seem to bear that out.
