Sprockets aren’t just found supporting bike chains, they also do their thing in bulldozer and tank tracks, as well as in film projectors. The sprockets in all of these machines rotate to move a flexible belt of some kind – a bike chain or a conveyor belt – and the many moving parts of these belts means more wear and tear on the belt itself and the sprockets. This is why sprockets tend to be placed on the outside of the machine so that they can be fixed or replaced with ease.
Gears tend to be placed more deeply inside machines – transferring power from a car engine to the drive train, or moving the hands on a clock or watch. Gears are more resistant to damage and are more efficient than sprockets (which is not to say that sprockets don’t perform well where they are used!), so engineers and developers prefer to use gears. A good example of this is when car designers started to use rigid drive trains and gears to move cars along – previously, many cars were using chain drives, but the last chain-driven cars were made in the 1960s
0 comments:
Post a Comment