There are very inexpensive worm gear drives exported from China.  USA made worm gear drives a 10x.

I have been experimenting with worm gear drives and there are some issues to overcome.

There is an effect called "stiction" that occurs when unloading the gear and the load (antenna) will bounce.

Keeping the antenna balanced and minimizing load on the worm gear helps.

I watched the YouTube video of the dual worm gear with stepper motors.   Do the stepper motors generate RF noise that would interfere with SSB satellites?

73 - Paul - W2HRO

 






On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 4:24 PM Mark Jessop <vk5qi@rfhead.net> wrote:
Worm gearboxes are also used in some pretty beefy *commercial* rotators as well. 
I have one of these on my az/el system: https://www.rfhamdesign.com/products/spx-antenna-rotators/spx-02-az--el/index.php

It's been running well for 4 years now, with pretty regular use. 

73
Mark VK5QI

On Tue, Feb 2, 2021 at 7:15 AM Joseph Armbruster <josepharmbruster@gmail.com> wrote:
Mike,

I visited one HAM recently and he had a 6 foot wide dish antenna with
a very old hand-crank az/el rotator, that used worm gears.  I looked
over it for several minutes (in awe!) and was surprised at how
incredibly smooth / easy it was to crank.

Joseph Armbruster
KJ4JIO

On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 3:29 PM Mike Hoblinski <hobergenix@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for all the feedback. I have seen them used a lot in small rotor projects with a DC motor.
> The ones used in the person's rotor build look fairly hefty and in some of his build threads he
> mentioned that they are waterproof and the gears have an oil encapsulated reservoir. I did some
> checking and each worm gear box costs about 40 dollars and up.
>
> Mike
> N6IMF
>
> On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 9:21 PM Ashhar Farhan <farhanbox@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> They do pretty well. We used them here with reversible AC motors that were ar overkill.
>>
>> On Mon 1 Feb, 2021, 8:29 AM Mike Hoblinski, <hobergenix@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I was wondering how well would a worm gear assembly hold up for AZ and EL drives and what
>>> might be the drawbacks. I ran across one persons rotor project that uses worm gear boxes
>>> with Nema 21 stepper motors. The gear boxes themselves cost about 45 dollars each and
>>> appear to be quite rugged and waterproof.
>>>
>>> Github     https://github.com/YohanHadji/SuperAntennaz
>>> Youtube   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuH7F1J6nr8
>>> Satnogs   https://community.libre.space/t/satnogs-all-metal-box-mountable-rotator/4927/24
>>>
>>> Mike
>>> N6IMF
>>>
>>>
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