IMS Gear, a German leader in gear manufacture, has launched the IMS baseline, IMS techline and IMS SDLine showcasing their full range of gears and gearboxes.
IMS Gear specialise in planetary gearboxes both standard and customised to suit the customer. A perfect example of a customised solution is the Ambrogio lawn mower robots.
The lawn robots mow grass areas as large as 3,200m2 and automatically avoid obstacles such as trees and can climb gradients as steep as 30°. The robot has sensors designed to detect longer and shorter blades of grass and control blade speed and height to save battery power. It also can detect rain and automatically switches to power saving mode.
In the complex design of the robot the gearbox used needed to cope with gradients and provide a high output torque, along with a hard wearing design that can cope with rough conditions. The answer was IMS. Techline customised solutions to adapt to the requirements in terms of clogged wheels and vibration.
There are two series of the robot. The 200 series robot uses the PM32 3 stage planetary gear with 4.5Nm output torque and reduction ratio of i=169:1. The ring gear is made of steel to be hard wearing. The 300 series more advanced robot uses the PM42 3 stage planetary gearbox with 15Nm output and reduction ratio of i=150:1.
IMS Gear adapted various components to fit the needs of the robots including specialist aluminium motor flanges designed to absorb vibration, ball and needle bearings avoiding the peak forces of a clogged wheel and a special output shaft for the PM42 to allow the customer to attach the driving wheel direct to shaft.
General Purpose Planetary Gearheads like the PM32 and PM42 mentioned can be used with virtually any motor and offer cost effective torque enhancement and speed reduction. Metal or thermoplastic construction or a combination of both ensure optimization of strength, cost, noise and life. Tailor-made, not just off the shelf, there are an incredible 10000 different combinations.
This application is an example of the IMS.techline. IMS Gear have launched a three tier approach to their gearboxes:
- IMS.baseline Standard gear drives for small and medium volume production based on a modular system
- IMS.techline Customized gear drives for high-volume production based on a modular system
- IMS.SDline Specific optimized solutions
Drive Lines is the UK distributer for IMS Gear and can offer a complete solution including llinear guidance, motors, screw jacks and couplings.
For more information on the range call Drive Lines on 01234 360689, log on to www.drivelines.co.uk or email sales@drivelines.co.uk and request some literature.