What is a Gear Reducer?

Figure 1: Helical Gear Planetary Ratio 50 Reducer Gearbox PLG90-50-19-70-90 for Servo Motor Robot.

The gear reducer is an independent enclosed transmission gear between the prime mover and the machine, which is used to reduce the speed and increase the torque to meet the work needs. Gear reducers are widely used in many industries, such as mining, hoisting, packaging machinery, and textile fields. Next, a detailed introduction to the gear reducer will be presented.

1. How do Gear Reducers Work?

The motor output speed of the gear reducer is input from the driving shaft, and the small pinion of the reducer moves consequently. The large pinion is linked to the small one, so the movement of the latter will drive the movement of the former. Since the large pinion has more teeth, it turns slower. The output speed of the output shaft passing through the large gear becomes slower, so that the speed is reduced.

2. Characteristics of Gear Reducers

The gear reducer is a mechanism driven by multi-stage gears, i.e., the use of gears of different specifications to drive the operation to reduce the engine speed. It has the following characteristics.

2.1 High Hardness

Gear reducers are made of carbon steel and gold elements and are slowly quenched. The hardness of the gears reaches Hardness Rockwell C (HRC) 58-62. They are made by the computer numerical control (CNC) gear grinding process and have high precision and good contact performance.

Figure 2: Vortex hard ground gearing of worm gear reducer inside the gearbox.

2.2 High Transmission Power

The transmission power of gear reducers is higher than that of the general machine, 90% at level 3, 93% at level 2, and 96.5% at level 1.

2.3 Stable Running Speed

The speed of gear reducers is stabler than other reducers, and the sound is lower when it is running.

2.4 Small Size

The gear reducer is only half the size of other machines, so it is relatively light. Gear reducers have a long average service life and excellent bearing capacity.

2.5 Convenient Installation and Uninstallation

It is easy to install, inspect and uninstall gear reducers.

In general, the gear reducer has the characteristics of small size, light weight, low noise, stable operation, high transmission rate, excellent bearing capacity, easy installation and uninstallation. It is one of the indispensable equipment in industrial production.

3. Types of Gear Reducers

According to the transmission mode, it is divided into gear reducer, worm gear reducer and planetary gear reducer.

Figure 3: Porovin planetary reducer TM060-010-S2-P2 for servo motor reducer.

According to the shape of the gear, it is divided into cylindrical gear reducer, bevel gear reducer and helical gear reducer.
According to the number of stages, it is divided into single-stage gear reducer and multi-stage gear reducer.
According to the transmission unfolding mode, it is divided into unfolding gear reducer, coaxial gear reducer and split shaft gear reducer.
According to the structural material, it is divided into metal gear reducer and plastic gear reducer.
According to the power, it is divided into high-power gear reducer and low-power gear reducer.

The more commonly used reducers include gear reducer, planetary reducer, direct current (DC) reducer, and worm gear reducer. They have different purposes and performances and are all irreplaceable.

4. What does a Gear Reducer do?

Gear reducers work in three aspects: deceleration, modifying torque and reducing inertia.

4.1 Deceleration

In industrial production, it is often necessary to operate at different frequencies. The gear reducer changes the frequency deceleration during the operation of the equipment.

4.2 Modifying Torque

Gear reducers modify torque to modify the speed. Different devices have different maximum torque values that should not be exceeded.

Elaboration of how gears modify torque and speed

Figure 4: Illustration of how gears modify torque.

4.3 Reducing Inertia

The gear reducer will reduce the inertia of the target machine while working. The reduced value is proportional to the deceleration value.

5. Applications of Gear Reducers

Gear reducers are generally used for transmission equipment with low speed and high torque. With the continuous development of the reducer industry, more and more enterprises use reducers. At present, gear reducers are widely used in the transmission and drive fields of textile, printing and dyeing, light industry, food, metallurgy, mining, petroleum, chemical industry, construction, transportation, machinery and other industries.