GEARS, DRIVES & MOTORS
QUALITY MANUFACTURING
HARMONIC DRIVE
WHY COMPANIES NEED TO BE STRINGENT
We exist in a consumer driven world where
product development and innovation
moves rapidly. In the fight to keep
pace, manufacturers can be tempted to
compromise on quality and here, Graham
Mackrell, managing director of Harmonic
Drive UK, explains why companies need to
be stringent and avoid cutting corners. Servo actuators and gears are vital
components of industrial equipment used
for steel manufacturing and in the machine
tool industry. At Harmonic Drive UK, we’ve
found that the significant growth in these
industries has resulted in a surge in the
demand for high precision strain wave
gears.
The idea that all production has moved to
China is a misguided view according to the
Office for National Statistics. In the UK, the
demand for high-skilled production has
gained much greater prominence in the last
decade, especially when considering high
precision manufacturing. To meet the wide range of requirements
for manufacturers, we have continuously
developed our servo actuators in the
LynxDrive® Series. Now, we have further
extended the series to include the
LynxDrive® -25C, which is designed
to be considerably more compact
than traditional gear and servo motor
combinations.
The issue for most manufacturers is the
pressure of bringing products to market
within constrained timeframes. The
pressure intensifies when the product is
quality sensitive as is the case for precision
manufacturing, and so the importance of
employing the right gears for industrial
equipment has never been greater.
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PECM Issue 36
The LynxDrive® -25C is a high precision
strain wave gear with output bearing,
combined with a permanent magnet servo
motor that is specifically customised to the
actuator. Extremely robust and offering
a high overload capability, the motor’s
design, with its vacuum encapsulation
winding, supports almost unlimited
maximum performance, even at link
voltages of 320 VDC.
More importantly, the series is available in
five sizes with six gear ratios between 30
and 160:1, providing accelerating torques
between 50 Nm and 176 Nm. This makes
the servo actuators ideal for modern
manufacturing machines that aim to
reduce costs and increase productivity.
With high protection ratings and corrosion
resistance, the series is perfectly suited for
use in harsh and demanding environments
like the industrial manufacturing plants of
today. With accurate positioning, Harmonic
Drive®’s actuator ensures stable machine
characteristics and short cycle times
without jeopardising quality.
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