Samputensili STA 300

The Samputensili STA 300 is a CNC gear shaping machine from Samputensili Machine Tools, the gear machine division of SAMP Group based in Bologna, Italy. The STA 300 applies the gear shaping process to external and internal spur and helical gears up to 300 mm pitch diameter, serving the automotive transmission, agricultural machinery, industrial gearbox, and general engineering markets where gear shaping's unique ability to cut internal gears and shoulder-constrained external gears makes it indispensable.

Gear shaping is a generating gear cutting process in which a gear-form cutter (the shaper cutter) reciprocates axially while rotating in synchrony with the rotating workpiece gear, cutting the involute profile through a series of strokes as both workpiece and cutter rotate together in a generating relationship. Unlike hobbing, which can only cut external gears and requires significant run-out space beyond the gear face, shaping can produce both external and internal gears and can operate close to shoulders, flanges, and other obstructions — making it the process of choice for cluster gears, stepped gears, internal ring gears, and any gear where the geometry prevents the approach of a hob.

Samputensili has produced gear shaping machines since its founding in 1949 and draws on this deep heritage in the STA 300's design. The machine employs a CNC-controlled stroking mechanism with high stroke rates and optimized stroke geometry, minimizing the non-cutting return stroke time and maximizing material removal rate. Radial feed and circular feed are both CNC-controlled, allowing the generating motion to be optimized for different gear geometries and materials. The STA 300 accommodates a wide range of shaper cutter sizes and styles — disc cutters, shank cutters, and cup cutters — enabling it to address the full spectrum of external and internal gear applications within its 300 mm diameter capacity.

Control is via Siemens SINUMERIK 840D sl with Samputensili's gear parameter programming interface, which accepts the gear's defining parameters — module, number of teeth, pressure angle, helix angle (for helical gears), profile modification requirements — and generates the shaping program automatically. Helical guide capability allows the machine to shape helical gears with programmable helix angles, expanding its applicability to helical internal gears used in automotive planetary gearsets — components where neither hobbing nor broaching can be applied and shaping is the enabling process.

The STA 300 is widely used in automotive planetary gearset manufacturing, where its ability to shape ring gears (internal helical gears) makes it a core machine in any transmission gear manufacturing cell. It also serves agricultural and construction equipment manufacturers cutting large-module external gears close to shoulders, general engineering job shops cutting internal gears for a wide range of customer applications, and motorsport and specialty vehicle manufacturers cutting close-ratio or custom transmission gears where shaping provides the geometric access that other processes cannot.