What is Harmonic Drive?

What is Harmonic Drive?

A unique and useful characteristic of the Harmonic Drive is its ability to transmit motion through sealed walls. The flexspline teeth can be placed near the centre of a long, hermetically sealed, flexible, cylindrical tube.

What is strain wave gear aka Harmonic Drive?

Strain wave gearing (also known as harmonic gearing) is a type of mechanical gear system that uses a flexible spline with external teeth, which is deformed by a rotating elliptical plug to engage with the internal gear teeth of an outer spline.

What are the advantages of a Harmonic Drive gear compared to other conventional gear systems?

With operating principles and construction that maximize output torque and minimize size and weight, Harmonic Drive® gears offer advantages such as high reduction ratios in a single stage, zero backlash, and high precision that cannot be equaled by conventional gear trains.

What are the main components of a Harmonic Drive gear?

This special type of gear has a unique construction that comprises only three essential components: the wave generator, the flex spline and the circular spline. It enables large transmission ratios from high down to low rotational speeds.

How does a harmonic reducer work?

Harmonic Drive developed a unique gear tooth profile that optimizes the tooth engagement. This tooth profile (the “S tooth”) enables up to 30% of the total number of teeth to be engaged simultaneously. Additionally the large tooth root radius increases the tooth strength compared with an involute tooth.

What is a cycloidal reducer?

A cycloidal drive or cycloidal speed reducer is a mechanism for reducing the speed of an input shaft by a certain ratio. Cycloidal speed reducers are capable of relatively high ratios in compact sizes with very low backlash. These output shaft pins directly drive the output shaft as the cycloidal disc rotates.

Can you run a speed reducer in reverse?

Generally yes, if you use the original output shaft as the new input shaft then you would be achieving the opposite (i.e. converting high-torque input to high-speed output).

What does Backdrivable mean?

A backdrive is a component used in reverse to obtain its input from its output. This extends to many concepts and systems from thought based to practical mechanical applications. Not every system can be backdriven.

What are the benefits of cycloidal gears?

Cycloidal gears also experience lower friction and less wear on the tooth flanks due to their rolling contact and lower Hertzian contact stress. And their good torsional stiffness and capacity to withstand shock loads make them ideal for heavy industrial applications that also require servo precision and stiffness.

Why is a harmonic drive called a strain wave?

The harmonic drive is a type of gear arrangement often referred to as a strain wave gear because of the way it works. It is a kind of reduction gear mechanism consisting of a minimum of three main components. These components interact in a way that allows for very high precision reduction ratios that would otherwise require much more complex

What kind of gear is a harmonic drive?

The harmonic drive is a type of gear arrangement often referred to as a strain wave gear because of the way it works.

How is strain wave gearing based on elastic dynamics?

Later, Hasegawa Gear Work became Harmonic Drive Systems located in Japan and USM Co. Harmonic Drive division became Harmonic Drive Technologies. Cross section of a harmonic gear. The strain wave gearing theory is based on elastic dynamics and utilizes the flexibility of metal.

When was strain wave gearing first used in the US?

It was first used successfully in 1960 by USM Co. and later by Hasegawa Gear Works, Ltd. under license of USM. Later, Hasegawa Gear Works, Ltd. became Harmonic Drive Systems Inc. located in Japan and USM Co. Harmonic Drive division became Harmonic Drive Technologies Inc.