Gear down Motor or Gears?

[farmersvilleRob]

Originally Posted by Madison

Some energy is lost to things like friction, heat and vibration in every stage of your gearing.

Spur gears and sprockets and chain are both very efficient if built properly -- as high as 98% or so. That means that 98% of the energy input on one end comes out the other.

Losses due to inefficiency occur at each stage of gearing -- so a system with two stages would be ( .98 * .98 ) efficient, for example.

Cool! and... disheartening.. but, with 96% effieciency, that still falls within our range which is about a 75% wiggle room.