How Gear Ratios Work (2024)

How Gear Ratios Work (1)

If you want to create a high gear ratio, nothing beats the worm gear. On a worm gear, a threaded shaft engages the teeth on a gear. Each time the shaft spins one revolution, the gear moves one tooth forward. If the gear has 40 teeth, you have a 40:1 gear ratio in a very small package. Worm gears allow windshield wipers to function. A mechanical odometer is another place that uses a lot of worm gears.

Planetary Gears

There are many other ways to use gears. One specialized gear train is called a planetary gear train. Planetary gears solve the following problem. Let's say you want a gear ratio of 6:1 with the input turning in the same direction as the output. One way to create that ratio is with the following three-gear train.

How Gear Ratios Work (2)

In this train, the blue gear has six times the circumference of the yellow gear (giving a 6:1 ratio). The size of the red gear is not important because it is just there to reverse the direction of rotation so that the blue and yellow gears turn the same way. However, imagine that you want the axis of the output gear to be the same as that of the input gear. A common place where this same-axis capability is needed is in an electric screwdriver. In that case, you can use a planetary gear system, as shown here.

How Gear Ratios Work (3)

In this gear system, the yellow gear (the sun) engages all three red gears (the planets) simultaneously. All three are attached to a plate (the planet carrier), and they engage the inside of the blue gear (the ring) instead of the outside. Because there are three red gears instead of one, this gear train is extremely rugged. The output shaft is attached to the blue ring gear, and the planet carrier is held stationary — this gives the same 6:1 gear ratio. You can see a picture of a two-stage planetary gear system on the electric screwdriver page, and a three-stage planetary gear system of the sprinkler page. You also find planetary gear systems inside automatic transmissions.

Another interesting thing about planetary gearsets is that they can produce different gear ratios depending on which gear you use as the input, which gear you use as the output, and which one you hold still. For instance, if the input is the sun gear, and we hold the ring gear stationary and attach the output shaft to the planet carrier, we get a different gear ratio. In this case, the planet carrier and planets orbit the sun gear, so instead of the sun gear having to spin six times for the planet carrier to make it around once, it has to spin seven times. This is because the planet carrier circled the sun gear once in the same direction as it was spinning, subtracting one revolution from the sun gear. So in this case, we get a 7:1 reduction.

You could rearrange things again, and this time hold the sun gear stationary, take the output from the planet carrier and hook the input up to the ring gear. This would give you a 1.17:1 gear reduction. An automatic transmission uses planetary gearsets to create the different gear ratios, using clutches and brake bands to hold different parts of the gearset stationary and change the inputs and outputs.

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How Gear Ratios Work (2024)

FAQs

How does a gear ratio work? ›

A gear ratio is the ratio of the number of rotations of a driver gear to the number of rotations of a driven gear. A colon is often used to show a gear ratio: gear ratio = rotations of a driver gear : rotations of a driven gear. For every rotation of the 45-tooth gear, the 15-tooth gear must rotate 3 times.

How do you solve gear ratios? ›

You just count the number of teeth on the two gears and divide the two numbers. So if one gear has 60 teeth and another has 20, the gear ratio when these two gears are connected together is 3:1. They make it so that slight imperfections in the actual diameter and circumference of two gears don't matter.

How do gear ratios work on fishing reels? ›

This number represents the speed of the reel, and it should be read this way. X.X (revolutions of the spool) : (to) (X) turns of the reel handle. So, if your reel has a gear ratio of 6.2:1, then the spool revolves 6.2 times for each turn of the reel handle. The same for 5.1:1, 6.4:1, 7.1:1, 8.0:1 9.0:1 and so on.

How do I determine what gear ratio I need? ›

To find the ideal selection, multiply the final drive ratio by the redline speed in fourth gear (152 mph) and divide that by the top track speed (140 mph). This would yield a theoretical 3.33—which is close enough to the nearest available final drive ratio of 3.36:1.

What's the difference between 4.10 and 3.73 gears? ›

Additionally, with a gear ratio of 3.73, the pinion will turn 3.73 times for one turn of the ring gears, and for a 4.10, the pinion will turn 4.10 times.

What is a 5 to 1 gear ratio? ›

A: A 1 to 5 gear ratio means that for every one revolution of the input gear, the output gear will make five revolutions. This ratio is a measure of the mechanical advantage created by the gears, often used to increase output speed in relation to the input speed.

How do you calculate the gearing ratio? ›

How to Calculate the Net Gearing Ratio. Net gearing can also be calculated by dividing the total debt by the total shareholders' equity. The ratio, expressed as a percentage, reflects the amount of existing equity that would be required to pay off all outstanding debts.

What is the formula for ratios? ›

Ratios compare two numbers, usually by dividing them. If you are comparing one data point (A) to another data point (B), your formula would be A/B. This means you are dividing information A by information B. For example, if A is five and B is 10, your ratio will be 5/10.

How to calculate speed with gear ratio? ›

How do I calculate a vehicle's speed from its gear ratio?
  1. Determine the engine's speed in rotations per minute (rpm). ...
  2. Multiply it with 3.6 × π × r , where r is the wheel radius in meters.
  3. Divide it by 30 × g , where g is the gear ratio at the gearbox.
5 days ago

What gear ratio is best for topwater? ›

The fast gear ratio reels of over 7.0:1 will allow for less time between casts to increase fishing efficiency. Topwater: In most cases, topwater baits are lightweight and/or create slack in the line. This creates a need for a fast reel of 7.0:1 or higher to pick up the slack in the line to be ready for the hookset.

What gear ratio is best for bait? ›

A low-speed spinning reel with a 4.9:1 gear ratio is the best bet for fishing with live or dead bait.

What is the best gear ratio for a reel? ›

A slow reel is the ideal choice for most crankbaiting. A reel with about a 5:1 gear ratio is going to help you get your baits to their maximum depth and also give you superior feel, so you know exactly what's going on with your lure.

How do you solve a gear ratio problem? ›

We can express this basic concept with the formula Gear ratio = T2/T1, where T1 is the number of teeth on the first gear and T2 is the number of teeth on the second.

What is the formula for calculating gear ratio? ›

To calculate the gear ratio:

Divide the number of driven gear teeth by the number of drive gear teeth. In our example, it's 28/21 or 4 : 3. This gear ratio shows that the smaller driver gear must turn 1,3 times to get the larger driven gear to make one complete turn.

What is gear ratio calculator? ›

The gear ratio gives us an idea of how much an output gear is sped up or slowed down or how much torque is lost or gained in a system. We equipped this calculator with the gear ratio equation and the gear reduction equation so you can quickly determine the gear ratio of your gears.

Is it better to have a higher or lower gear ratio? ›

Power and Torque: Different gear ratios provide different levels of power and torque. For example, a lower gear ratio will provide more torque and better acceleration, while a higher gear ratio will provide less torque but better fuel efficiency.

What does a 2 to 1 gear ratio mean? ›

2:1 means two rotations of the driver gear cause one rotation of the follower gear. This is reduction - the speed is decreased 2 times, the torque is increased 2 times. You get half of the speed but double torque.

What is a 3 to 1 gear ratio? ›

You just count the number of teeth on the two gears and divide the two numbers. So if one gear has 60 teeth and another has 20, the gear ratio when these two gears are connected together is 3:1. They make it so that slight imperfections in the actual diameter and circumference of two gears don't matter.

What is a 1 to 4 gear ratio? ›

It means you've got two gears and one of them has four times as many teeth as the other. Since the teeth have to be the same size, the gear with more teeth is physically bigger, so turns more slowly than the little one.

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