Carrier-less, anti-backlash planetary drive system

摘要

This invention relates to a carrier-less, anti-backlash planetary gear system that has an input sun gear, a force-balancing and planet-alignment 'speeder' gear above the sun gear, a split ring gear that has a fixed lower ring gear coaxial with the sun gear and a rotating upper ring gear also coaxial with the sun gear. A preload bolt is used for securing the split ring gears together. Within the split ring gear is an even number of planet gears between the split ring gear and the sun gear. Each planet gear consists of an upper planet gear, and lower planet gear with the upper and lower planet gears splined together and pushed apart by a spring which causes separation and relative twist between the upper and lower planet gears. The lower planet gear meshes with the input sun gear and the fixed ring gear while the upper planet gear is driven by the lower planet gear and meshes with the rotating ring gear.