Worm Gears

[josh]

I'm looking for a more efficient alternative to worm gears and I'm wondering if anybody knows of a better option. I need to run 4 worms at equally spaced points on a central large gear. If there is no alternative am I right in assuming If the drive is the central large gear then the threading should be as fine as possible? I could effectively run a large bevel although this makes my mounting slightly awkward as it needs two stages. The large centre will always be the drive and the 4 modules must rotate perpendicular to this.

[olivers]

That won't work. With worm gears you need to drive the worm gear which in turn drives the spur gear. You can't drive a worm gear from a spur wheel.

Look at bezel gears as these may do what you want.

[daliad100]

Worm gears with high lead angles can be back driven but they will probably be very expensive/ a custom job.

For something that will probably be cheaper, possibly even off the shelf, 45 degree helical gears can be meshed like that.