Klingelnberg C 30

The Klingelnberg C 30 is a CNC bevel gear cutting machine designed for the soft cutting of Palloid and Cyclo-Palloid spiral bevel gears with a maximum workpiece diameter of 300 mm (11.81 in). Manufactured by Klingelnberg GmbH in Hückeswagen, Germany, the C 30 is the smaller model in Klingelnberg's C series bevel gear cutting range, positioned for automotive axle gear manufacturers, helicopter gearbox suppliers, and industrial right-angle drive producers who require a compact, high-productivity bevel gear cutter for small-to-medium bevel gear sets. The C 30 uses Klingelnberg's Cyclo-Palloid conical hob — a continuously rotating cutter unique to the Klingelnberg system — to generate spiral bevel teeth in a continuous hobbing motion, cutting all teeth in a single setup without the indexing interruptions required by face-hobbing or single-indexing processes.

The Cyclo-Palloid cutting process on the C 30 generates spiral bevel gear teeth with a theoretical conjugate geometry across the full face width. The conical hob rotates continuously while the workpiece rotates and tilts on two synchronized CNC axes to generate the bevel tooth form. This continuous generation process — analogous to cylindrical gear hobbing — is inherently productive because the cutter is always engaged, unlike reciprocating or single-indexing bevel cutting methods. The C 30 achieves roughing and finishing of both ring gear and pinion in a single machine platform, minimizing the number of different machines required in a bevel gear production cell.

Klingelnberg has equipped the C 30 with its KIMOS (Klingelnberg Integrated Manufacturing and Optimization System) software platform, accessed through an intuitive touchscreen HMI on the Siemens SINUMERIK 840D sl control. KIMOS manages the entire workflow from bevel gear geometry design through cutter selection, NC program generation, and process parameter optimization. The machine operator enters gear design parameters — spiral angle, pitch cone angle, number of teeth, module, face width — and KIMOS calculates all machine settings including tilt angle, cradle angle, cutter tilt, and feed rate. This eliminates the complex manual calculations historically required for bevel gear machine setup and dramatically reduces the knowledge barrier for job changeovers.

The C 30's machine structure is a compact, thermally stable cast-iron design optimized for the small-to-medium bevel gear range. Both hob spindle and workpiece spindle are driven by direct-drive torque motors, providing fast acceleration, zero backlash, and low maintenance. The machine is designed for wet cutting with oil or emulsion coolant to manage heat generation in the cutting zone, though mist extraction systems are available for near-dry operation where environmental regulations require it. A chip conveyor handles the continuous chip flow from the production cutting cycle.

In a typical Klingelnberg bevel gear production cell, the C 30 is paired with a P 40 or P 26G bevel gear grinding machine for hard finishing after case hardening, and with a Klingelnberg P series bevel gear measuring center for quality verification and closed-loop correction. The C 30 is most competitive for automotive rear axle and hypoid gear production in the 150–300 mm diameter range, where its compact footprint, direct-drive technology, and KIMOS software integration provide a productive and well-supported alternative to Gleason's face-hobbing cutters. New C 30 machines are priced between $700,000 and $1,000,000 depending on tooling, software, and automation configuration.