What are the Advantages of Harmonic Drive Gearbox?

Strain wave harmonic drive gearbox is mainly composed of four basic components: a wave generator, flexible gear, flexible bearing and rigid gear. A harmonic reducer is a kind of gearbox transmission that relies on the wave generator assembled with flexible bearings to produce controlled elastic deformation of the flexible gear and meshes with the rigid gear to transmit motion and power. The advantages of the harmonic drive gearbox are explained in detail below.

Advantages of harmonic drive gearbox

1. The harmonic drive gear ratio is large. Single-stage harmonic gearing transmission speed ratio range from 70 to 320, in some devices, can reach 1000, and multi-stage transmission speed ratio up to 30,000 or more. It can be used not only for deceleration but also for speed-increasing occasions.
2. It has a high load-bearing capacity. This is because the number of teeth engaged at the same time in the harmonic gearing transmission, the number of teeth engaged at the same time in the double-wave transmission can reach more than 30% of the total number of teeth, and the flexible wheel is made of high-strength materials, and the teeth and teeth are in contact with each other.
3. High precision harmonic transmission. Because the number of teeth meshed at the same time in the harmonic gear transmission, the error is averaged out, so that multiple teeth meshing has a mutual compensation effect on the error, and the transmission accuracy is high. In the case of the same gear accuracy level, the transmission error is only about 1/4 of the ordinary cylindrical gear transmission. At the same time can be used to change the radius of the wave generator to increase the deformation of the flexible wheel so that the tooth gap is very small, and can even achieve no side gap meshing, so the harmonic gear reducer transmission clearance is small, suitable for reverse rotation.
4. Harmonic drive gearbox has high efficiency and smooth motion. Since the teeth of the flex wheel make uniform radial movement during transmission, the relative slip speed of the teeth is still extremely low even if the input speed is high. Therefore, the wear of wheel teeth is small and the efficiency is high (up to 69%~96%). And because of the meshing and meshing out, both sides of the gears are participating in the work, so no impact phenomenon, smooth movement.
5. The structure of the harmonic drive is simple, the number of parts is small, and it is easy to install. There are only three basic components, and the input and output shafts are coaxial, so the structure is simple and easy to install.
6. It is small in size and light in weight. Compared with a general reducer, the volume of the harmonic gear reducer can be reduced by 2/3 and the weight by 1/2 when the output torque is the same.
7. Harmonic gearing can transmit motion to confined space. Using the flexible characteristics of the flexible wheel, the wheel transmission is incomparable to other transmissions.

ATO harmonic drive gearboxes are used in many industries, such as industrial robots, aerospace, common ordnance, lifting machinery and so on. Harmonic gearboxes can transmit power from tens of watts to tens of kilowatts, but the high-powered ones are mostly used in short-term operations. However, after understanding the advantages of strain wave harmonic drive gearbox, we all know that this harmonic reducer has many benefits to improving efficiency.