DimJim
I have been away for the past week so I have not seen all of the messages in this forum.
In response to your March 16th posting;
Ironically, one of my clients asked me to review such a pair of gears (14 1/2 degree PA meshing with 20 degree PA) about a month ago. I have seen it done one other time about 4 years ago as well. It would not be ethical for me to share their particular designs, but it is quite easy to make up a simple example.
The following gears will mesh with proper conjugate action.
Spur Pinion
16 teeth 1.5 module 14-1/2 deg PA, Circ Tooth Thickness 2.745 mmm, OD 28.504mm Root Dia 21.754mm Tip Rad .2 mm
Spur Gear
40 teeth 1.5454218 module 20 deg PA, Circ Tooth Thickness 1.988 mmm, OD 653.7mm Root Dia 56.745mm Tip Rad .2 mm
Operating Center Distance 42.908 mm
I am not saying that these designs represent a totally optimised approach, but these can run with action just as good as a 20 degree PA pair or a 14 1/2 degree PA pair.
You will also notice that since the modules are non-standard, this may not be a desirable approach if off the shelf cutting tools are needed.
Where I have seen this a approach used is for companies that have quite a large seletion of plastic gears in their inventory, and they mix and match in order to achieve certain ratios without having to double up on 14 1/2 and 20 degree pressure angle versions for for each tooth count.
Bear in mind that the beauty of the involute is that conjugate action can be maintianed with differences in center distance.
Gearmolds posting on March 17th is correct.
In my posting of Dec 21/06, I want to point out that it is not the pressure angles that define conjugate action, but that the normal base pitches of the two gears match. This is the premis of the formula that I gave in that earlier posting.
Notice that this same formula for normal base pitch
(Pi x Cos (Pressure Angle) x Normal Module)
would explain why two gears at 20 degree pressure angles would not mesh with conjugate action if they have different normal modules.