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How the Roller Gearing Mechanism Works

In our patented roller gearing and transmission mechanism power is transmitted from the driving body to the driven body via a series of rollers that carry out pure rolling motion. This means that unlike in conventional gears there is no sliding friction among the moving parts but rolling friction only. Rolling friction is by about 100 to 500 times smaller than sliding friction and thus frictional energy losses in the roller gearing mechanism are by about 100 to 500 times smaller than in conventional gears - in fact they are practically negligible.

We apply rollers to intermediate between the driving and the driven bodies and use fundamentally new and specially designed shapes for the surfaces of the driving and driven bodies in order to ensure that they facilitate pure rolling motion for the rollers.

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The rollers are in simultaneous contact with the surfaces of both the driving and the driven bodies and are embraced by the grooves developed onto the surfaces of the two bodies. When the driving body moves it exerts force on the rollers that pass the force on to the driven body through their contact point. As a result the movement of the driving body is translated into a movement of the driven body while, in the meantime, the rollers roll along the grooves on the surfaces of both bodies. When a roller reaches the end of the grooves it exits from coupling between the two bodies and goes back to the beginning of the grooves to enter the grooves again and create a new coupling between the two bodies again. The continuous line of several rollers makes it sure that there is continuous and rigid coupling between the two bodies at all times.

The design of roller gears including the rollers and the specially shaped driving and driven bodies is fundamentally different than that of conventional gears and as a result besides negligible frictional energy losses further additional advantages arise. For example, unlike in conventional gears where this would be impossible and would cause immediate jamming of and damage to the wheels, the driving and driven bodies and the rollers between them can be pushed against each other without causing any significant increase in the friction among them or any other problem. Applying such a stress between them we can practically eliminate any back-lash in the mechanism and achieve a very precise movement in the gear. This is another major improvement compared to conventional gears in its own right.

Another beneficial 'side-effect' of the new mechanism and yet another very important improvement to conventional gears is the potential for a high engagement factor. It is quite natural in this design to employ a series of rollers that are in simultaneous contact with the driving body and the driven body. The arising engagement factor can be as high as ten or twenty or even higher. This gives rise to a number of advantages including smooth running, precise movements, low noise, small size, cheap raw material and great reliability.

Two further features illustrate how different this mechanism is from conventional gears. For example, one can change the (relative) direction of rotation of the wheels without adding a new wheel (and further frictional losses) to the system by simply changing the pair of wheels to another pair with a different set of grooves on their surfaces. Also, quite conter-intuitive from the view point of conventional gears, one can adjust (within reasonable limits) the gearing ratio without changing significantly the diameter (ratio) of the wheels. This is again because the ratio can be changed by changing the groove structure that may not mean a significant change to the wheel diameters.

In summary, this mechanism may require a whole new mindset and intuition to be developed than the one we have from conventional gears. The mechanism could be said resembles more in its operational features to a ball screw or ball bearings than to conventional gears with connecting teeth involved. Yet it is infinitely richer in its geometrical and applicational varieties than conventional ball screws with several additional degrees of freedom added to the system.

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