A planetary gearbox Decrease drive is a mechanical gadget to shift rotational velocity. A planetary reduction drive is a little scale version using ball bearings within an epicyclic arrangement instead of toothed gears.

Reduction drives are found in engines of all types to increase Zthe amount of torque per revolution of a shaft: the gearbox of any car is a ubiquitous exemplory case of a reduction drive. Common household uses are washing machines, food blenders and window-winders. Decrease drives are also used to decrease the rotational acceleration of an input shaft to a proper output speed. Decrease drives can be a gear train design or belt driven.

Planetary reduction drives are typically attached between your shaft of the variable capacitor and the tuning knob of any kind of radio, to allow good adjustments of the tuning capacitor with soft movements of the knob. Planetary drives are used in this situation in order to avoid “backlash”, making tuning simpler. If the capacitor drive has backlash, when one attempts to tune in a station, the tuning knob will feel sloppy and it will be hard to perform small adjustments. Gear-drives could be made to have no backlash by using split gears and springtime tension but the shaft bearings have to be very precise.