This DIY pressure wave gearbox is powerful sufficient to drag a automobile

Mechanical benefit is arguably crucial engineering idea that humanity has ever realized to harness. By changing distance, just like the size of a lever or rotations of a gear, into torque (and vice versa) we are able to overcome nearly any bodily problem. However that distance might be a problem. For instance, if in case you have an enter gear 10mm in diameter and desire a 100:1 discount, your output gear must be a full meter in diameter. Pressure wave gearboxes clear up that drawback and Brian Brocken’s video will stroll you thru how one can construct your personal that’s robust sufficient to drag a automobile.

To keep away from meter-wide gears, engineers sometimes flip to gearboxes that incorporate a number of gears. Every gear multiplies the discount of the previous gear, so a number of gears can obtain dramatic reductions and one can prepare them in a compact area. However a pressure wave, AKA “harmonic drive,” gear can obtain an identical discount with simply three components: a wave generator, a flex spline, and a round spline. 

The round spline is the outermost half and has inside gear tooth of typical geometry. The flex spline meshes with that round spline, however solely at two reverse factors. The wave generator, which is the enter and innermost half, has an rectangular form and forces the flex backbone’s tooth into contact with the round spline. This odd association causes the flex spline to push the round spline ahead by round one tooth per full revolution, leading to an enormous discount. Brocken’s design produces a discount of 54:1, which is unbelievable for the dimensions. As a result of there are solely two factors the place the gear tooth mesh, this produces much less friction than a typical gearbox and has tighter tolerances due to the shortage of drugs backlash.

A lot of the mechanical components for this pressure wave gearbox are 3D-printable, however you’ll want a technique to management the DC motor that drives the gearbox. Brocken used an Arduino Nano board that matches onto a customized energy distribution PCB. With that, Brocken can use a big energy provide and permit the Nano to regulate a lBT2 H-bridge motor driver that handles as much as 43A. Utilizing a traditional brushed DC motor, this gearbox can produce about 3.75N*m. That’s much like an 79cc inside combustion engine and is sufficient to pull a Dodge Charger throughout a flat floor.