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Industry · Automation

Robotics

Joint-drive reducers, end-effector gear sets, and zero-backlash couplings for industrial and humanoid robot makers.

Robot makers split their gear-buying between two families: the joint reducer (where backlash kills repeatability) and the end-effector (where weight matters more than precision). Wolfer ships both — Class 5 ground gears for joints, and aluminum / plastic-hybrid gear sets for low-mass end-effectors.

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What we ship

Parts we make for Robotics.

Joint-drive gear sets

Class 5 ground helical / bevel for low-backlash joint motion

Humanoid wrist / ankle gears

Miniature bevel and spiral bevel sets, custom modules

End-effector lightweight gears

Aluminum or POM / PA66 spur gears for low-inertia tooling

Zero-backlash couplings

Bellows / beam couplings for encoder feedback loops

Gear shafts with integrated encoders

Shaft with gear + encoder bore in one part

Industrial robots have settled into a small number of joint reducer architectures (harmonic + planetary at the shoulder, planetary + spur at the wrist). Robot makers buy custom helical gear sets for the higher-torque joints, and small precision spur sets for the lower joints.

Humanoid robots, on the other hand, are still in the build-and-iterate phase. We ship one-off and small-batch custom gear sets to Chinese humanoid robot startups every month — bevel sets for ankle-yaw, miniature helical pairs for wrist articulation, and POM / aluminum hybrid sets to keep arm-mass low.

End-effectors (grippers, tool changers) need a different mindset — gear ratios matter less than weight, gear backlash matters less than gear inertia. We cut these in aluminum and engineering plastics where the customer asks.

Products this vertical buys

Linked to full product specs.

Each card opens the product detail page with full capability matrix, materials, and standards.

Gears

Helical / bevel / planetary stages, Class 5

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Gear Shafts

Integrated gear-shafts for joint output

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Couplings

Bellows · beam · diaphragm for zero-backlash encoder loops

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Torque Limiters

Ball-detent limiters for end-effector crash protection

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Engineering requirements

What makes robotics parts different.

Zero / low backlash

Ground Class 5 gears, paired and lapped where required

Lightweight options

Aluminum, POM, PA66 — for arm and end-effector mass budgets

Encoder-loop quality

Bore concentricity ≤ 0.01 mm for encoder mounting

Crash protection

Optional torque-limiter integration in the gear or coupling body

Low inertia

Thinner web designs, hollow shafts where the drawing allows

Customers

Active robotics customers.

A selection of internationally known names — the full list lives where it matters, in our shipping records.

SIASUN
ESTUN
UBTECH
BEAR ROBOTICS

Case studies

Representative outcomes.

< 3 arc-min backlash · 200 g per pair

Humanoid wrist bevel set — 6-DOF arm

Miniature spiral bevel set for the wrist of a Chinese humanoid robot. 7075 aluminum + ground 440C stainless combination, custom 5-tooth pinion + 30-tooth wheel.

−40% mass vs. baseline steel design

End-effector tool-changer sprocket

Roller-chain sprocket re-cut in 7075 aluminum for an industrial robot end-effector. Customer reduced arm tip-mass by 380 g across the production fleet.

FAQ

Common questions from robotics buyers.

Do you make harmonic-drive flexsplines?

No — harmonic drive flexsplines and circular splines are a specialty manufacturing process (high-precision tube forming + tooth grinding) that we do not offer. We make the spur / helical / bevel gears that surround the harmonic, plus the housing components.

Can you make plastic gears?

Yes. Acetal (POM) and PA66 nylon gears are routine — we machine them on the same hobbers as steel gears. For high-volume plastic gears we partner on injection molding.

What is the smallest gear module you cut?

Module 0.5 is our practical lower bound — below that, tooth geometry becomes ambiguous and inspection error dominates. We have cut module 0.3 on special request.

Related industries

Verticals we also serve.

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Precision transmission components for surgical robots, lab automation, and diagnostic equipment — built to medical-grade traceability.

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Industrial Automation

Conveyor drives, packaging-line motion, and AGV transmissions for high-mix automation builders.

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Machine Tools

Spindle drives, ATC tool-change indexers, and rotary-table gears for CNC machine builders.

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Building robotics equipment?

24-hour quote · engineering review within one business day · ≤ 30 days to ship after approval.

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