http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/69974/Flexiblegearsbolsterwindturbinereliability.aspx

Matt Prather.

The best thing I can say about that web site is; it is recalcitrant :)

"The IFB consists of a double-cantilever pin supporting the bearing and gear.
The cantilevered pin attaches to the carrier wall, and a cantilevered sleeve
mounts to the free end of the pin. Gears and bearings mount on the sleeve."

"Simply stated, external forces on the gear make "the pin bend in one
direction, the sleeve bend in the opposite direction, and misalignment
angle at the gear face remains virtually zero," says Fox."


Interesting design but certain mechanical things don't scale up well.
Most well designed planetarys have a certain amount of flexibility built
in to handle this problem. They also have straddle mounted pinion shafts.
I was rather surprised when Ford changed the low modulus aluminum for
steel in the planet carrier for the six pinion version.

Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

Is this pin the same thing?
http://www.compactorbitalgears.com/cog-flexible-pin.html

Jeff


Same idea different implementation. This is a single cantilevered pin
and not a straddle mounted pin like the Timken implementation.

Most of this is moot as modern NC tools can hold tolerance
to .0005" or less. This may have been real important 30 years ago.

The Ford planet sets (made by Toyota) have proven to be perfectly adequate
for our needs.