Cycloidal gearing

The Benefits of Cycloidal Gear Technology

Proven technology for your machines

Top Features of a Cycloidal Drive

This type of Sumitomo drive far outperforms conventional drives. Due to their rolling motion, cycloidal drives have a significant advantage over cogwheel drives.

In contrast to conventional spur gears, where one or two teeth absorb the full load, a cycloidal drive distributes the load over at least 30% of the disc profile. Cycloidal drives and gearmotors offer outstanding performance, reliability and a long lifetime, even in the toughest operating conditions. Today, they’re considered a proven solution that should be favoured over other drive types in a number of scenarios – for good reason. Here’s why:

High Reduction Ratios
Cycloidal gearboxes are capable of providing very high reduction ratios in a single stage, often ranging from 30:1 to over 100:1, and even higher in multi-stage configurations. This is significantly higher than what is typically achievable with other types of gearboxes in a single stage, making them ideal for applications requiring substantial speed reduction and torque amplification.
Compact Design
Despite these high reduction ratios, cycloidal gearboxes maintain a compact and efficient design. This is due to the efficient transmission of force through the cycloidal discs and the reduction mechanism’s inherent stability and balance.
Precision and Low Backlash
The gear ratio, combined with the operational characteristics of the cycloidal motion, results in very low backlash. This makes cycloidal drives suitable for applications requiring high precision and repeatability, such as robotics, machine tools, and automation systems.
Durability and Load Capacity
The cycloidal design evenly distributes loads across multiple contact points between the cycloidal disc and the pins. This distribution, along with the gearbox’s inherent mechanical advantage, enhances its durability and ability to withstand high loads.
Cycloidal gear

Cycloidal gear technology

Sumitomo Cyclo gears work by sharing the load across its reducer components. This makes them more compact, durable and precise than conventional cog gears

Cyclo gears provide high reduction ratios in a single stage, often ranging from 30:1 to over 100:1, and even higher in multi-stage configurations.

Explore our products with Cyclo® Technology Inside

As the inventor of cycloidal gears, we provide a broad range of tried and tested products - spanning traditional gearmotors like the Cyclo Drive 6000, robust and versatile products such as the Cyclo Drive 6000 reducer and the mechanically backlash-free precision gears in the Fine Cyclo® series.

Look out for the logo that says "Cyclo Technology Inside"

Celebrating 100 years of the Cyclo® gear

Cyclo 100 Year Celebration Collage