March 2006

NEMA connexion flange for fast, custom-fitting attachment
Today gearheads are indispensable in drive technology. Especially in the case of smaller drives, such as stepper, servo or brushless EC motors they are the element that ensures that the drive is properly coordinated. Up to now the requirement for the greatest possible variability of gears despite low stock-keeping has posed problems. There is now a solution for the motors with the NEMA geometry popular in Europe for smaller gearheads: gearheads that are already preassembled for mounting on NEMA motors. The NEMA interface permits fast, custom-fitting and accurately-centred mounting of a wide variety of gearheads and motors, if required on customers’ sites.

For example, in order to make it easier for users of stepper motors to use gearheads, ZEITLAUF^®, the drive specialists, developed a special NEMA interface for its product range. All of the standard gearheads manufactured by ZEITLAUF^® can be mounted on the corresponding motors fast and securely by means of a connexion flange and a clamp pinion. The simple assembly and the centric connexion ensured by the design even makes it possible for the customer to perform the final configuration of the drive on the spot.

The diversity of gears and gear ratios
The housings of the Performax, Noiseless and Focus planetary gearheads and of the Flatline and Compactline spur gears are connected to the motor via a specially-adapted connexion or coupling flange. The power transmission from the motor shaft to the gearhead is undertaken by helically-toothed coupling pinions. To prevent the long service life of the gearheads (over 5,000 h) from being impaired due to angle errors, the incoming gearhead toothing is designed as an expansive clamp sleeve (Figure 1). Force closure is ensured by a lock ring that is prestressed by a means of a screw. In terms of performance and service life, gearheads configured in this way are by no means inferior to the discrete gearhead-motor solutions deployed to date.

The new solution covers a major section of small drives with the NEMA nominal sizes 17, 23 and 34. Depending on the NEMA design and the type of gearhead selected, output torques ranging from 0.5 to 50 Nm can be achieved. Apart from the different designs of gearheads, the modular system with over 174 variants makes it possible to achieve a sensitive graduation in gear ratio reduction (Figure 2). Diversity and a long service life permit the use of gearheads in such varying fields as apparatus and mechanical engineering, door drive and medical technology. The modular structure is an essential prerequisite for the fast 48-hour delivery service for all standard designs. ZEITLAUF^® also provides the “KEEP WORD WARRANTY”, an unparalleled service (Figure 3). If a gearhead motor fails within a year of purchase, it will be repaired or replaced by a new one up to two times free of charge. This applies if a quantity of up to 20 units is ordered from the standard modular series.

Text: Martin Mika, ZEITLAUF^® graduate engineer - precision engineering and micro technology (University of Applied Science) and Andreas Zeiff, chemistry graduate, editorial office Stutensee
For further information on the subject, please consult www.zeitlauf.com
Material may be used free of charge; reader inquiries should be addressed directly to ZEITLAUF^®

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