Because the sun equipment in a hybrid unit is pre-aligned within the gearhead and not affixed to the engine shaft, these gearheads can be utilized in contouring applications such as a glue-dispensing nozzle for affixing a windshield to a car. Motion of the nozzle since it comes after the seam between a windshield and its window frame must be perfectly smooth; or else a ripple in velocity alters the bead diameter and causes messy glue application.

Smooth motion, this means the lack of torque and velocity variations (ripple), is essential in contouring applications. But, it really is difficult to regularly achieve smooth motion where the sun equipment is installed on the electric motor shaft. A good slight misalignment in sunlight gear (engine shaft runout or coupling inaccuracies) can cause rough procedure and noise.

Many servo controllers use software compensation, and their success depends upon knowing the lost motion of the whole system. This details is usually obtainable from the gearhead producer.
Contouring applications usually involve end-effectors or tool-points that servo gear reducer follow mathematically defined paths. Sealant and bonding devices, drinking water and flame cutters, laser welders and cutters, motion controlled cameras, and CNC machine tools are good examples.

Software compensation is achieved by commanding the engine to move beyond the apparently desired position by a quantity add up to the system’s dropped motion, thereby bringing the load to the truly desired position. For example, look at a servomotor, gearhead, and leadscrew combination in a pick-andplace robot. If 100,000 encoder counts equals 1.0 in. of linear motion and the system has 0.1-in. lost motion, then your controller tells the electric motor to move 110,000 encoder counts to get 1.0 in. of motion, thus compensating for the 0.1-in. lost motion.

Backlash is the excess space between two adjacent equipment teeth and its engaging tooth; lost motion is the total looseness or motion at a reducer’s result shaft when the insight shaft is fixed. Lost motion includes backlash, plus losses from bearing looseness, tolerances and matches, and shaft and gear tooth compliance.
Servo controllers can be programmed to pay for backlash and lost motion in planetary gearheads. This system compensates for backlash also where a credit card applicatoin requires accuracy much better than the minimal backlash of the gearhead.