Select Page

Worm gears are often used when large speed reductions are needed. The reduction ratio is determined by the number of begins of the worm and quantity of the teeth on the worm equipment. But worm gears have sliding get in touch with which is tranquil but tends to produce heat and also have relatively low transmission efficiency.
As for the materials for production, in general, worm is constructed of hard metal while the worm gear is made from relatively soft metallic such as aluminum bronze. This is since the number of teeth on the worm gear is relatively high compared to worm using its number of begins being usually 1 to 4, by reducing the worm equipment hardness, the friction on the worm teeth is reduced. Another feature of worm manufacturing is the need of specialized machine for gear trimming and tooth grinding of worms. The worm gear, on the other hand, may be made with the hobbing machine used for spur gears. But due to the various tooth shape, it is not possible to cut a number of gears at once by stacking the apparatus blanks as can be done with spur gears.
The applications for worm gears include equipment boxes, angling pole reels, guitar string tuning pegs, and in which a delicate velocity adjustment by utilizing a big speed reduction is necessary. When you can rotate the worm equipment by worm, it is usually not possible to rotate worm by using the worm gear. This is called the self locking feature. The self locking feature cannot continually be assured and a separate method is recommended for accurate positive reverse prevention.
Also there exists duplex worm gear type. When using these, it is possible to adjust backlash, as when the teeth wear necessitates backlash adjustment, without requiring a change in the guts distance. There aren’t too many manufacturers who can produce this type of worm.
The worm gear is more commonly called worm wheel in China.
A worm gear is a gear comprising a shaft with a spiral thread that engages with and drives a toothed wheel. Worm gears are an old style of gear, and a edition of 1 of the six simple machines. Essentially, a worm equipment is definitely a screw butted against what looks like a typical spur gear with slightly angled and curved tooth.
It changes the rotational movement by 90 degrees, and the plane of movement also changes due to the position of the worm upon the worm wheel (or simply “the wheel”). They are usually comprised of a metal worm and a brass wheel.
Worm Gear
Figure 1. Worm equipment. Most worms (however, not all) are at the bottom.
How Worm Gears Work
An electric motor or engine applies rotational power via to the worm. The worm rotates against the wheel, and the screw encounter pushes on one’s teeth of the wheel. The wheel is certainly pushed against the load.
Worm Gear Uses
There are some reasons why you might select a worm gear over a standard gear.
The first one may be the high reduction ratio. A worm equipment can have a massive reduction ratio with small effort – all one should do is definitely add circumference to the wheel. Therefore you can use it to either significantly increase torque or greatly reduce speed. It will typically take multiple reductions of a typical gearset to achieve the same reduction level of a solitary worm gear – meaning users of worm gears possess fewer moving parts and fewer areas for failure.
A second reason to use a worm gear may be the inability to reverse the path of power. Due to the friction between the worm and the wheel, it really is virtually not possible for a wheel with pressure used to it to begin the worm moving.
On a standard equipment, the input and output could be turned independently once enough force is applied. This necessitates adding a backstop to a typical gearbox, further raising the complication of the gear set.
Why Not to Use Worm Gears
There is one particularly glaring reason why one would not choose a worm gear over a typical gear: lubrication. The motion between the worm and the wheel gear faces is completely sliding. There is absolutely no rolling component to the tooth get in touch with or conversation. This makes them relatively difficult to lubricate.
The lubricants required are usually very high viscosity (ISO 320 and greater) and therefore are difficult to filter, and the lubricants required are typically specialized in what they do, requiring a product to be on-site specifically for that kind of equipment.
Worm Gear Lubrication
The main problem with a worm gear is how it transfers power. It really is a boon and a curse simultaneously. The spiral motion allows huge amounts of decrease in a comparatively little bit of space for what’s required if a typical helical equipment were used.
This spiral motion also causes a remarkably problematic condition to be the principal mode of power transfer. This is often called sliding friction or sliding wear.
New call-to-action
With a typical gear set the power is transferred at the peak load stage on the tooth (referred to as the apex or pitchline), at least in a rolling wear condition. Sliding takes place on either part of the apex, but the velocity is relatively low.
With a worm gear, sliding motion is the only transfer of power. As the worm slides over the tooth of the wheel, it gradually rubs off the lubricant film, until there is absolutely no lubricant film left, and for that reason, the worm rubs at the steel of the wheel in a boundary lubrication regime. When the worm surface area leaves the wheel surface, it accumulates more lubricant, and begins the process once more on the next revolution.
The rolling friction on an average gear tooth requires little in the way of lubricant film to complete the spaces and separate the two components. Because sliding takes place on either part of the apparatus tooth apex, a slightly higher viscosity of lubricant than is definitely strictly necessary for rolling wear must overcome that load. The sliding occurs at a comparatively low velocity.
The worm on a worm set gear turns, and while turning, it crushes against the strain that is imposed on the wheel. The only way to prevent the worm from touching the wheel is usually to have a film thickness huge enough to not have the entire tooth surface wiped off before that area of the worm has gone out of the load zone.
This scenario requires a special sort of lubricant. Not only will it will have to be a comparatively high viscosity lubricant (and the higher the strain or temperature, the higher the viscosity must be), it must have some way to help conquer the sliding condition present.
Read The Right Method to Lubricate Worm Gears for more information on this topic.
Viscosity is the major aspect in stopping the worm from touching the wheel in a worm gear set. While the load and size of gearing determines the required lubricant, an ISO 460 or ISO 680 is rather common, and an ISO 1000 is not unheard of. If you have ever really tried to filter this range of viscosity, you understand it is problematic since it is probably that non-e of the filters or pumps you have on-site will be the proper size or ranking to function properly.
Therefore, you would likely have to get a particular pump and filter for this type of unit. A lubricant that viscous requires a slower operating pump to prevent the lubricant from activating the filter bypass. It will also require a large surface area filter to permit the lubricant to stream through.
Lubricant Types to Look For
One lubricant type commonly used with worm gears is mineral-based, compounded gear oils. There are no additives which can be put into a lubricant that can make it conquer sliding wear indefinitely, but the natural or synthetic fatty additive combination in compounded gear oils results in great lubricity, providing a supplementary measure of protection from metal-to-metal contact.
Another lubricant type commonly used with worm gears is mineral-based, commercial extreme pressure (EP) gear oils. There are several problems with this kind of lubricant in case you are using a worm gear with a yellow metal (brass) component. However, when you have fairly low operating temps or no yellow metal present on the gear tooth surfaces, this lubricant works well.
Polyalphaolefin (PAO) gear lubricants work very well in worm gear applications because they naturally have great lubricity properties. With a PAO gear oil, it is necessary to watch the additive package, because these can have EP additives. A standard-duty antiwear (AW) fortified gear oil will typically become acceptable, but check that the properties are appropriate for most metals.
The writer recommends to closely watch the wear metals in oil analysis testing to make sure that the AW package isn’t so reactive as to trigger significant leaching from the brass. The effect should be far less than what will be noticed with EP actually in a worst-case situation for AW reactivity, nonetheless it can show up in metals examining. If you need a lubricant that may handle higher- or lower-than-typical temps, a suitable PAO-based product is likely available.
Polyalkylene glycols (PAG), a fourth type of lubricant, are becoming more common. These lubricants have exceptional lubricity properties, and don’t support the waxes that trigger low-temperature issues with many mineral lubricants, producing them an excellent low-temperature choice. Caution must be taken when working with PAG oils because they’re not appropriate for mineral oils, and some seals and paints.
Metallurgy of Worm Gears
The most typical worm gears are created with a brass wheel and a steel worm. That is because the brass wheel is normally easier to replace compared to the worm itself. The wheel is made out of brass since it was created to be sacrificial.
In the event that the two surfaces come into contact, the worm is marginally safe from wear since the wheel is softer, and therefore, most of the wear occurs on the wheel. Oil analysis reports on this kind of unit almost always show some level of copper and low levels of iron – consequently of the sacrificial wheel.
This brass wheel throws another problem into the lubrication equation for worm gears. If a sulfur-phosphorous EP gear oil is placed into the sump of a worm gear with a brass wheel, and the temperature is certainly high enough, the EP additive will activate. In regular metal gears, this activation generates a thin level of oxidation on the top that helps to protect the apparatus tooth from shock loads and various other extreme mechanical conditions.
On the brass surface area however, the activation of the EP additive outcomes in significant corrosion from the sulfur. In a short amount of time, you can reduce a substantial portion of the load surface of the wheel and cause major damage.
Other Materials
Some of the less common materials found in worm gear units include:
Steel worm and metal worm wheel – This program does not have the EP complications of brass gearing, but there is absolutely no room for mistake built into a gearbox such as this. Repairs on worm equipment sets with this combination of metal are typically more costly and more time consuming than with a brass/steel worm equipment set. This is because the material transfer associated with failure makes both the worm and the wheel unusable in the rebuild.
Brass worm and brass worm wheel – This software is most likely found in moderate to light load circumstances because the brass can only keep up to a lesser amount of load. Lubricant selection on this metal mixture is flexible due to the lighter load, but one must still consider the additive limitations regarding EP due to the yellow metal.
Plastic on metal, upon plastic, and other comparable combinations – That is typically found in relatively light load applications, such as for example robotics and automotive components. The lubricant selection depends on the plastic in use, because many plastic types respond to the hydrocarbons in regular lubricant, and therefore will demand silicon-based or other nonreactive lubricants.
Although a worm gear will always have a few complications compared to a typical gear set, it can simply be a highly effective and reliable piece of equipment. With a little focus on set up and lubricant selection, worm gears can offer reliable service as well as any other kind of gear set.
A worm drive is one particular worm gear set system in which a worm meshes with a worm equipment. Even it is simple, there are two important components: worm and worm gear. (Also, they are known as the worm and worm wheel) The worm and worm wheel is essential motion control component providing large acceleration reductions. It can decrease the rotational swiftness or increase the torque result. The worm drive motion advantage is they can transfer motion in right angle. It also has an interesting house: the worm or worm shaft can simply turn the gear, however the gear can not turn the worm. This worm drive self-locking feature let the worm gear includes a brake function in conveyor systems or lifting systems.
An Intro to Worm Gearbox
The most important applications of worm gears is used in worm gear box. A worm gearbox is named a worm reduction gearbox, worm gear reducer or a worm drive gearbox. It includes worm gears, shafts, bearings, and box frames.
The worm gear, shafts, bearings load are supported by the container shell. So, the gearbox housing must have sufficient hardness. Otherwise, it will result in lower tranny quality. As the worm gearbox includes a durable, transmitting ratio, small size, self-locking capacity, and simple framework, it is often used across a wide range of industries: Rotary table or turntable, materials dosing systems, auto feed machinery, stacking machine, belt conveyors, farm choosing lorries and more automation market.
How to Select High Efficient Worm Gearbox?
The worm gear production process is also not at all hard. However, there is a low transmission performance problem in the event that you don’t know the how to select the worm gearbox. 3 basic indicate choose high worm gear efficiency that you need to know:
1) Helix position. The worm gear drive efficiency mostly depend on the helix position of the worm. Usually, multiple thread worms and gears is definitely more efficient than single thread worms. Proper thread worms can increase effectiveness.
2) Lubrication. To select a brand lubricating oil can be an essential factor to improve worm gearbox performance. As the proper lubrication can reduce worm gear action friction and heat.
3) Material selection and Gear Manufacturing Technology. For worm shaft, the material should be hardened metal. The worm gear materials should be aluminium bronze. By reducing the worm gear hardness, the friction on the worm tooth is decreased. In worm manufacturing, to use the specific machine for gear slicing and tooth grinding of worms can also increase worm gearbox efficiency.
From a big transmission gearbox capacity to a straight small worm gearbox load, you can choose one from an array of worm reducer that precisely fits your application requirements.
Worm Gear Box Assembly:
1) You can complete the installation in six different ways.
2) The installation should be solid and reliable.
3) Make sure to check the connection between your motor and the worm gear reducer.
4) You must use flexible cables and wiring for a manual installation.
With the help of the most advanced science and drive technology, we have developed several unique “square box” designed from high-quality aluminium die casting with a lovely appearance. The modular worm gearbox style series: worm drive gearbox, parallel shaft gearbox, bevel helical gearbox, spiral bevel gearbox, coaxial gearbox, right angle gearbox. An NMRV series gearbox is a standard worm gearbox with a bronze worm gear and a worm. Our Helical gearbox product line comprises of four universal series (R/S/K/F) and a step-less acceleration variation UDL series. Their structure and function are similar to an NMRV worm gearbox.
Worm gears are made of a worm and a equipment (sometimes referred to as a worm wheel), with nonparallel, nonintersecting shafts oriented 90 degrees to each other. The worm is certainly analogous to a screw with a V-type thread, and the gear is certainly analogous to a spur gear. The worm is typically the driving component, with the worm’s thread advancing the teeth of the gear.
Like a ball screw, the worm in a worm gear may have a single start or multiple starts – and therefore there are multiple threads, or helicies, on the worm. For a single-start worm, each full switch (360 degrees) of the worm increases the equipment by one tooth. Therefore a gear with 24 teeth will provide a gear reduction of 24:1. For a multi-begin worm, the apparatus reduction equals the amount of teeth on the gear, divided by the amount of begins on the worm. (That is different from almost every other types of gears, where in fact the gear reduction is a function of the diameters of both components.)
The worm in a worm gear assembly can have one start (thread) or multiple starts.
Picture credit: Kohara Gear Market Company, Ltd.
The meshing of the worm and the gear is a mixture of sliding and rolling actions, but sliding contact dominates at high reduction ratios. This sliding actions causes friction and heat, which limits the efficiency of worm gears to 30 to 50 percent. In order to minimize friction (and for that reason, warmth), the worm and gear are made from dissimilar metals – for example, the worm may be made of hardened metal and the gear manufactured from bronze or aluminum.
Although the sliding contact decreases efficiency, it provides extremely quiet operation. (The utilization of dissimilar metals for the worm and equipment also plays a part in quiet operation.) This makes worm gears ideal for use where sound should be minimized, such as for example in elevators. Furthermore, the use of a softer material for the gear implies that it could absorb shock loads, like those experienced in weighty equipment or crushing machines.
The primary benefit of worm gears is their ability to provide high reduction ratios and correspondingly high torque multiplication. They can also be utilized as acceleration reducers in low- to medium-rate applications. And, because their decrease ratio is founded on the number of gear teeth only, they are smaller sized than other types of gears. Like fine-pitch lead screws, worm gears are typically self-locking, which makes them perfect for hoisting and lifting applications.
A worm gear reducer is one type of reduction gear box which includes a worm pinion input, an output worm equipment, and features a right angle result orientation. This kind of reduction gear box is generally used to have a rated motor acceleration and create a low speed result with higher torque worth based on the decrease ratio. They often times can solve space-saving problems since the worm gear reducer is one of the sleekest reduction gearboxes available because of the little diameter of its result gear.
worm gear reducerWorm equipment reducers are also a popular type of rate reducer because they offer the greatest speed decrease in the tiniest package. With a higher ratio of speed reduction and high torque result multiplier, it’s unsurprising that lots of power transmission systems utilize a worm gear reducer. Some of the most typical applications for worm gears are available in tuning instruments, medical tests equipment, elevators, security gates, and conveyor belts.
Torque Transmission provides two sizes of worm gear reducer, the SW-1 and the SW-5 and both are available in a variety of ratios. The SW-1 ratios include 3.5:1 to 60:1 and the SW-5 ratios include 5:1 to 100:1. Both of these options are produced with durable compression-molded glass-fill polyester housings for a durable, long lasting, light-weight speed reducer that’s also compact, noncorrosive, and nonmetallic.
Features
Our worm gear reducers offer a choice of a solid or hollow result shaft and feature an adjustable mounting position. Both the SW-1 and the SW-5, however, can endure shock loading much better than other reduction gearbox designs, making them ideal for demanding applications.
Rugged compression-molded glass-fill up polyester housing
Light-weight and compact
Non corrosive
Non metallic
Range of ratios
SW-1, 3.5:1 to 60:1
SW-5, 5:1 to 100:1
Grease Lubrication
Solid or Hollow output shaft
Adjustable mounting position
Overview
Technical Info
Low friction coefficient on the gearing for high efficiency.
Powered by long-lasting worm gears.
Minimal speed fluctuation with low noise and low vibration.
Lightweight and compact relative to its high load capacity.
Compact design
Compact design is one of the key terms of the standard gearboxes of the BJ-Series. Further optimisation may be accomplished by using adapted gearboxes or special gearboxes.
Low noise
Our worm gearboxes and actuators are extremely quiet. This is due to the very smooth operating of the worm equipment combined with the use of cast iron and high precision on component manufacturing and assembly. Regarding the our precision gearboxes, we consider extra care of any sound that can be interpreted as a murmur from the gear. Therefore the general noise level of our gearbox can be reduced to a complete minimum.
Angle gearboxes
On the worm gearbox the input shaft and output shaft are perpendicular to each other. This frequently proves to become a decisive advantage making the incorporation of the gearbox significantly simpler and more compact.The worm gearbox is an angle gear. This is often an edge for incorporation into constructions.
Strong bearings in solid housing
The output shaft of the BJ worm gearbox is quite firmly embedded in the apparatus house and is ideal for direct suspension for wheels, movable arms and other areas rather than having to build a separate suspension.
Self locking
For larger gear ratios, BJ-Gear’s worm gearboxes provides a self-locking impact, which in many situations can be utilized as brake or as extra security. Also spindle gearboxes with a trapezoidal spindle are self-locking, making them well suited for an array of solutions.

Like just what you learned? Share what you understand about Helical Gear Reducer with your pals as well as household by taking them to our internet site.