I wanted to try and print some planetary gears to try and make my 4th axis work better.

Using the gear generator that you can get at www.woodgears.ca I generated the proper gears and exported them as dxf files. I took the dxf files into Solidworks and made the gears 3D objects, then I exported as stl files (which is what format the 3D printer wants)

I also designed a planet carrier and did some work to the ring gear to make it fit my needs (to be able to bolt onto a Nema23 stepper motor)

I Printed all the parts and assembled - and it WORKS!

There's a little backlash for sure - so these won't be the end all gears, but it still can be done! :) (Check out version 2.5 here)

check out the pics and the video of my homemade planetary gears below!