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SHIMPO series of high precision gearboxes utilize different types of gearing technologies – planetary, worm, rotary stage – yet each achieves the highest level of precision and performance within its competitive class.

SHIMPO Product Solutions

With our inline planetary portfolio, our customers have access to a wide variety of frames sizes, ratios, and many configurations are unmatched across the industry. NIDEC-SHIMPO has become the dominant precision planetary gearbox supplier within the robotics segment.

  • VRSF - Economy class
  • VRL – General purpose
  • VRB - General purpose, simple mount
  • VRS – Highest radial, axial load capacity
  • VRT – Compact, ISO flange mounting
  • Food/Washdown Duty – Optional features for food or washdown environments

NIDEC-SHIMPO has developed an impressive right-angle planetary gearbox offering. The core right-angle products are established from the base design of their inline equivalents. Similar to our Inline offering, these right-angle series have some differences in terms of internal bearing design, output mounting, among others that differentiate each series from the other.

  • NEV – Spiral bevel/planetary, economy class
  • EVL – General purpose
  • EVB – General purpose, simple mount
  • EVS – Highest radial, axial load capacity
  • EVT – Highest radial, axial load capacity, hollow shaft

The NIDEC-SHIMPO FLEXWAVE is a very compact harmonic gear reduction mechanism that achieves zero backlash, as well as exceptional accuracy and repeatability. The FLEXWAVE consists of three major internal elements – the elliptical wave generator, the flexspline, and the circular spline. The elasticity properties of the flexspline and the teeth differential between the flexspline and the circular spline result in the unique reduction characteristics.

NIDEC-SHIMPO expanded upon our right angle product offering to include a variety of high-precision worm gearboxes. These servo grade speed reducers are ideal for the most challenging of motion control applications. Each series incorporates a globoidal worm gear mesh design in order to achieve the torque handling capacity and the highest levels of precision that our SHIMPO customers have come to expect.

NIDEC-SHIMPO first developed its STH off-set hollow bore rotary gearbox for a variety of robotic handling applications. They have since expanded its indexing product offering with the STR, to handle those applications that require larger overall torque carrying capacity with even finer levels of precision.

NIDEC-SHIMPO compact, robust cycloidal reducer is designed for servo applications. This product features high reduction ratios in a compact form factor. Its key advantage is exceptional shock load capacity, which eliminates the need to oversize the reducer for that requirement.

They are ideal for applications operating in heavier industrial environments, but requiring servomotor mounting and good accuracy. Its compactness offers advantages against helical gearing, which requires additional stages to achieve higher reduction ratios. Its high efficiency against worm gears allows our customers to downsize and still enjoy larger output power. The end result is longer service life and tremendous energy saving.

NIDEC-SHIMPO heavy duty cycloidal gearboxes utilize cycloidal gearing technology deliver the most robust solution in the most compact footprint. The main power train is comprised of an eccentric roller bearing that drives a wheel around a set of internal pins, keeping the reduction high and the rotational inertia low. The wheel incorporates a curved tooth profile instead of the more traditional involute tooth profile, which removes shear forces at any point of contact. This design introduces compression forces, instead of those shear forces that would exist with an involute gear mesh. That provides a number of performance benefits such as high shock load capacity (>500% of rating), minimal friction and wear, lower mechanical service factors, among many others.

The NIDEC-SHIMPO Ring-cone has a strong advantage over the common electronic variable speed drives in certain performance aspects. The Ring-cone is a mechanical adjustable speed drive utilizing a ring and cone friction power train – hence the name. The internal drive assembly consists of an input disc, a set of planetary cones, a control ring, the cam disc and a pressure control cam. The Ring-cone has different sizes to handle motor power ranging between 1/4HP – 20HP, and nominal output torque ratings spanning 15 – 130,000 in-lbs. This unique drive provides a speed range of 0 – 800 RPM, and a cam mechanism that adjusts to the environment downstream and can withstand a certain amount of shock load.

The Traction Drive mechanism produces smooth rotation and eliminates speed irregularity due to the high frequency vibration inherent in gear transmission. This is how the traction drive provides high rotational accuracy with low noise. Transmission through either cones or planet rollers being contacted under pressure allows the system to eliminate backlash when paired with full closed loop control. This allows the differential to approach zero backlash and achieve extremely high positional accuracy. The traction drive technology, in summary, provides many benefits over your tradition planetary gearbox;

  • Capable of handling higher input (>6,000 rpm, no problem) and output speeds
  • Exceptionally smooth rotation for better speed control
  • Higher reduction ratios in the 1st stage
  • Variable speed output
  • Much lower backlash (to the arc-sec)

NIDEC-SHIMPO offers a comprehensive lineup of rack and pinion drive systems with exceptional accuracy, system rigidity, feed forces, torque density and efficiency. Each component of the system—gearbox, rack and pinion—is optimized to meet these demands. Although we focus on highly dynamic applications, we also offer more cost-effective options for less challenging axes.

Helical and straight racks are both available, from module 0.5 to module 12, with quality levels from 5 to 10 and lengths up to 3000mm. Our core products are induction hardened and ground, but we can offer a variety of heat treatment and surface finish options. Pinions are offered for keyed shaft or ISO9409-1-A mounting interfaces.