Smoothness and absence of ripple are essential for the printing of elaborate color images on reusable plastic material cups available at fast-food chains. The color image is made up of an incredible number of tiny ink dots of many colors and shades. The entire cup is printed in one pass (unlike regular color separation where each color can be printed separately). The gearheads must work easily enough to synchronize ink blankets, printing plates, and cup rollers without introducing any ripple or inaccuracies that may smudge the picture. In this instance, the hybrid gearhead reduces motor shaft runout mistake, which reduces roughness.
Sometimes a motor’s capability may be limited to the stage where it requires gearing. As servo manufacturers develop better motors that can servo motor gearbox muscles applications through more complicated moves and create higher torques and speeds, these motors need gearheads add up to the task.
Interestingly, no more than a third of the motion control systems operating use gearing at all. There are, of training course, reasons to do so. Using a gearhead with a servo engine or using an integrated gearmotor can enable the use of a smaller motor, thereby reducing the system size and cost. There are three principal advantages of going with gears, each which can enable the use of smaller motors and drives and for that reason lower total system price:
Torque multiplication. The gears and quantity of teeth on each gear produce a ratio. If a electric motor can generate 100 in-pounds of torque, and a 5:1 ratio equipment head is attached to its output, the resulting torque will be close to 500 in-lbs.
When a motor is running at 1,000 rpm and a 5:1 ratio gearhead is mounted on it, the speed at the output will be 200 rpm. This speed decrease can improve system performance because many motors usually do not operate efficiently at very low rpm. For example, consider a stone-grinding mechanism that requires the motor to perform at 15 rpm. This slow speed makes turning the grinding wheel challenging because the motor tends to cog. The variable resistance of the stone being floor also hinders its ease of turning. By adding a 100:1 gearhead and letting the engine run at 1,500 rpm, the engine and gear head provides smooth rotation while the gearhead output provides a more constant power with its output rotating at 15 rpm.
Inertia matching. Servo motors generate more torque in accordance with frame size because of lightweight materials, dense copper windings, and high-energy magnets. The effect is greater inertial mismatches between servo motors and the loads they want to control. The use of a gearhead to raised match the inertia of the motor to the inertia of the load can enable the usage of a smaller engine and results in a far more responsive system that is easier to tune.