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Originally Posted by evolution
What are your thoughts on using a single piece of chain to connect three sprockets placed at the corners of an equilateral triangular? Is this feasible? I know that there will be less surface area contact between each sprocket and gear, perhaps resulting in greater stress on the sprocket, but do you think this would work?
(I did a quick search on this, but came across nothing - please lead me in the right direction if anything already exists on this. Thanks!)
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There are certain rules of thumb like the chain should wrap the sprocket approximately 120 degrees. These all point to the fact that the small sprocket is under the most stress. I think that you can make it work, you might have to use larger sprockets to spread the force across more teeth, or have idler sprockets push in on the sides of the triangle to cause the chain to engage more teeth. You could use stronger, heavier, more expensive sprockets and chains. Each problem has many solutions, but possibly only one will work when you factor in the rest of the issues.
This website might give you some ideas:
http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tabl...ler_chain.html
Edit: I was posting while you were posting. The small sprockets will endure the most stress. If you add an idle sprocket between them and force the chain down, you might be able to have the small sprockets engage one or two more teeth. This will spread the force across more teeth and reduce the possibility of failure. Unless you analyze the actual forces, it is difficult to know how close you are to failure.