Talk:Harmonic drive

Clarification and diagram
It isn't clear how it works, so I've added a Cleanup tag. Biscuittin (talk) 22:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

A diagram would help. --anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.91.159.27 (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I added a link to a well done 3d rendering of a harmonic drive. Benplusnumber (talk) 07:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This was removed by robot shortly after being added. If you made the animation yourself, the best thing to do is probably to upload the animation (details at Upload), with an appropriate license (which you can select), and a description that includes the phrase "I, the author of this animation, hereby release it under the (name of license) license.". Then you can link it with an [[Image:]] tag. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I have rewritten the mechanical section to try to make this article more clear, as well as posted a reference to a helpful article. Diagrams and/or an animation should still be added. --Barjeconiah (talk) 18:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Something's wrong with the PDF link to the gear magazine. The animation of the gear is nice, but because it isn't shown at a bit of an angle, it isn't immediately obvious that the internal flex-gear is a cup shape, and is what provides the actual output. Hope that helps :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.165.154 (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The PDF works fine for me. Wizard191 (talk) 17:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The animation HarmonicDriveAni.gif is good - thanks to whoever provided it. If position markers could be added to one or more teeth on the splines, it would show even more clearly their relative rotations. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.180 (talk) 08:22, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

History section
Does Harmonic Drive LLC have a patent monopoly on harmonic drives or something? If not, the second paragraph of the History section is irrelevant/superfluous and should be removed or moved, as the subject of this article is not a corporation but a technology. 206.57.41.114 (talk) 18:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is a patented device that apparently is only manufactured by 2 groups, so unfortunately any description is likely to sound like an advertisement. I cleaned up the introduction so that it sounds a bit less like an advertisement and more like a useful device. Also added some references to its robotics & aerospace applications and its weaknesses, since I have used them on robots before and was told that they may still have issues of degrading over time if it experiences shocks on the output shaft. --Shervinemami (talk) 16:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Questions
For engineering purposes there is more information needed including:

- How to estimate the efficiency

- How to estimate power transfer

- Operational Life

- Cost to produce

- Maintainability/Repairability

- Safety issues —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.25.53 (talk) 19:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The generic term of this gear is Strain Wave Gearing and only sometimes called Harmonic Drive
Regarding your edit:, I would like to explain that this is not promotion. Behind this correction there is a legal problem. Harmonic Drive is a registered brand mark in Europe as well as in the US-market and not allowed to use it as a generic term (see also the german side of wikipedia/Harmonic Drive. The only reason I added the information that there is a company called Harmonic Drive LLC is that there have to be a connection to the key word "harmonic drive" and the explanation why sometimes it's called a harmonic drive gear. There are more companies who produce such gears and they call it all (more or less) strain wave gearing. Also in the patent of the inventor, Musser, he speak about the strain wave gear.-HDSC (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2012 (CET) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.17.17.170 (talk)
 * That is interesting. Do you have any evidence supporting your claim; by which I mean evidence that does not originate with your company? --John (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Further refernces are: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMh-Axar3o8" or "http://www.google.com/patents/US2883150?printsec=drawing#v=onepage&q&f=false" as well as "http://esearch.oami.europa.eu/copla/index#/search?q=harmonic drive&c=1,1,1,1,1&o=1,0,0,0&p=0-1,1-1,2-1,3-1".HDSC (talk) 16:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Because of the response here I will edit the content to strain wave gearing (known also as a "harmonic drive") HDSC (talk)
 * far as i know "Harmonic Drive" is much more common so i would recomend to switch it to (known also as/originaly named "strain wave gearing"). Its a very common problem in technology to sort out uncommon names unfortunatly. See also Hexapod/Stewart platform. --Kharon2 (talk) 00:09, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Does the trademark holder use "Harmonic Drive" to refer specifically to the transmission identified in the article, or does it brand other types of transmissions, e.g., planetary gear transmissions, with its trade name "Harmonic Drive" as well? If the latter, we might have a significant confusion of terminology that needs to be dealt with a little better. Robert K S (talk) 20:28, 16 March 2015 (UTC)