Idler-wheel
An idler-wheel drive is a system used to transmit the rotation of the main shaft of a motor to another rotating device, for example the platter of a record-reproducing turntable or the crankshaft-to-camshaft gear train of an automobile.
Friction drive
An idler-wheel may be used as part of a friction drive mechanism, as in a phonograph, or as a belt tensioner in a belt drive system.
Idler gear
An idler gear is a gear wheel that is inserted between two or more other gear wheels. The purpose of an idler gear can be two-fold. Firstly, the idler gear will change the direction of rotation of the output shaft. Secondly, an idler gear can assist to reduce the size of the input/output gears whilst maintaining the spacing of the shafts.
Gear ratio
An idler gear does not affect the gear ratio between the input and output shafts. Note that in a sequence of gears chained together, the ratio depends only on the number of teeth on the first and last gear. The intermediate gears, regardless of their size, do not alter the overall gear ratio of the chain. But, of course, the addition of each intermediate gear reverses the direction of rotation of the final gear.
Applications
- Reversing
An intermediate gear which does not drive a shaft to perform any work is called an idler gear. Sometimes, a single idler gear is used to reverse the direction, in which case it may be referred to as a reverse idler. For instance, the typical automobile manual transmission engages reverse gear by means of inserting a reverse idler between two gears.
- Transmission over distance
Idler gears can also transmit rotation among distant shafts in situations where it would be impractical to simply make the distant gears larger to bring them together. Not only do larger gears occupy more space, but the mass and rotational inertia (moment of inertia) of a gear is quadratic in proportion to its radius. Instead of idler gears, of course, a toothed belt or a roller chain can be used to transmit torque over distance.
- Battle tanks
All the gears and wheels that turn inside the tracks of a battle tank are idler gears that transfer power from the input gear to the output gear to move the track and move the tank forward. The power take off mechanism includes a gear train with an input idler gear, a first intermediate idler gear, a second intermediate idler gear and an output gear. The input idler gear receives a rotary input and the first intermediate idler gear meshes with the input gear and the second intermediate idler gear. The output gears transmit rotary power to one of the first and second axles.