Reliance Precision Ltd

With over 50 years of experience in the design and manufacture of precision gears, Reliance has developed an extensive range to suit a wide variety of customer applications.

Alongside our precision gears we offer hardened and precision ground gears for applications requiring higher load capacity and a very competitive range of brass gears for applications where there is a need to balance accuracy and load capacity against cost. Typical diameters range from 5 mm to 100 mm.

In many cases machine designers give limited thought to flexible shaft couplings. They devote their time to the more expensive components, overlooking the fact that the performance of a machine is only as good as the connections of its shafts. Reliance is fully aware of the importance of the shaft coupling and that they are often a critical part of the drive system. The Reliance range has been carefully designed and tested to provide trouble free operation over many millions of cycles.

Perfect alignment is not practical in applications where two shafts need to be joined and therefore some level of misalignment will always occur. This misalignment is usually the result of the support block manufacturing tolerances and structural alignment. Unless these tolerances are very precise use of a solid coupling will result in high shaft loading and significant bearing loads. In certain cases this misalignment is limited to angular or radial misalignments, but is more often a combination of the two.
Therefore, careful selection is important as differing configurations of coupling are designed to perform very differently dependent upon the application, and, as a consequence, have very different benefits and drawbacks.

Flexible shaft couplings offered by Reliance are ideal for torque transducers, as encoder couplings and all applications requiring rotary torsional stiffness connecting the motor drive shaft to the required system. Our engineers have many years of experience working with and specifying shaft couplings, and are very happy to offer application advice on any of our ranges, which include:

The Reliance Cool Muscle Motor is a cost-effective miniature servo systems that combines a precision stepper motor and high resolution encoder with sophisticated drive and control electronics in a single, compact unit. We also offer a range of accessories.

Reliance’s lead screw and nut assemblies provide a flexible, integrated solution for linear motion. Available in a wide choice of sizes and styles, with options for custom designed end modifications, the range offers the flexibility to address a wide variety of requirements.

Lead screws are provided with leads from 0.3 mm to 92 mm, screw diameters from 3 mm to 19 mm and thread lengths of up to 4 metres, making them an effective solution, even for high linear speed applications. They are available in a range of materials and coatings, with a choice of cut or standard interfacing ends, or with the option of custom machined ends. The screw thread form has been specifically designed for long life and quiet operation. It is manufactured using a rolled process, a highly consistent method of production resulting in a cost-effective, quality product.

The lead screw and nut assemblies have been designed specifically for motion control applications, rather than using adaptations of general purpose screws and nuts. There are 11 different nut styles, with a choice of mounts and also options for custom-designed nuts. Nuts are made from moulded plastic, which enables custom nuts to be produced with features of the drive system, such as bushings, carriages, pulleys and gears, integrated within the nut. This type of custom, multi-functional nut can offer a significant reduction in part count, reducing cost and assembly time in the overall mechanism.

Our range of hybrid and can-stack linear actuators are suitable for those who require high performance and endurance in a small package. They can be offered in three different formats; external linear, non-captive and captive. The range covers six different frame sizes, from 21 mm to 87 mm.

The external linear motor has a lead screw fixed to the motor. It rotates externally to the motor body. This option is flexible because the motor can have a wide range of lead screw lengths and nuts (including custom options). On a non-captive motor, the lead screw does not rotate but instead travels freely in and out of the motor body. A captive motor, on the other hand, has a shorter screw which is predominately held inside of the motor body. Our can-stack linear actuators contain a threaded rotor with a lead screw shaft able to drive linear motion in both directions.

The Reliance catalogue gearbox range includes planetary, bevel and hypoid gearboxes, which provide housed, modular solutions, as well as an epicyclic gear module, which can be used in single or multiple stacks to build a customised gearbox.

This rack driven actuator (Racktuator) is a compact actuation system which combines the Reliance Cool Muscle servo system with a rack and pinion drive to give precise linear motion for high speed applications.

Multiple configurations are available developing peak forces up to 150 N and rated speeds of 300 mm per second, with resolutions of better than 1 micron and standby power consumption of less than 1.7 watts. The assembly has a number of different mounting options for ease of mechanical installation.

A rack and pinion system gives the ability to transfer rotary to linear motion, with all the accuracy expected of a geared system.

The racks are manufactured from ground, hardened stainless steel or ground stainless steel and available with a choice of accuracies, pitches, and lengths, plus the facility to provide modifications such as flats, journals or custom ends. Hobbed stainless steel and brass racks are also available. The rack pinions are plain or anti-backlash, also with a choice of accuracies, pitches, bore sizes, alternative materials and coatings.

Reliance offer a range of actuators including the Reliance Cool Muscle Stage (RCMS) series, linear rail actuators and custom built solutions. We have recently added the Reliance Linear Miniature Actuator (RLMA) to the range. This motor driven slide assembly can be fully customised to suit multiple axes.

The Reliance range of precision linear slides and linear guides provides a variety of linear actuation solutions for loads up 12,580 N and with lengths in excess of 1 metre. The range includes miniature linear guides, stroke slides, roller slides, rack driven ball slides and linear rails, together with spline shafts which provide both linear and rotary motion.

Reliance friction clutches are available with either a set screw or a clamp type hub, with bore sizes 4, 5 and 6 mm. Coupled with one of Reliance’s precision cut gears, these clutches provide zero backlash prior to slipping and are designed to protect actuators from torque damage.

Our range of machine screws, hardware and accessories has been developed to complement the Reliance catalogue of standard and modified products. If you are unable to find the information on a specific type of screw or piece of hardware, please contact us.

Reliance timing belts and timing pulleys are available in 2.5 mm and 5 mm pitch. High tensile stainless steel reinforced polyurethane belts with widths of 6 mm, 10 mm and 16 mm, coupled with aluminium alloy machine cut pulleys, provide cost effective motion over extended centres.

We are able to supply a range of DC brushed and brushless motors from 10 to 120 mm diameter for a number of precision motion applications. We offer a variety of different power ratings and technologies. We are able to provide motors to suit a wide range of applications from scientific instruments to life science and semiconductor fabrication. For example, we offer a 10 mm autoclavable DC brushed motor suitable for medical and laboratory applications.

Motors can be supplied with gearboxes, encoders, drives and brakes. All motors can be altered to include a wide variety of modifications including shaft modifications and non-standard connectors. Motors can also be combined with our standard products to create integrated solutions for your application.

Miniature ball screws were added to our catalogue to complement our precision linear motion components. The range we offer (diameters up to 16 mm) are commonly used for precision positioning in semiconductor, scientific, medical instrument and metrology applications, and so are a natural, addition to the standard catalogue.

All of our products can be modified in a variety of ways. Modified Products can be anything from pre-loading a nut on a lead screw or machining an end feature of a shaft to an assembly of standard and modified products. Where additional bespoke features are required, we can offer an integrated solution.

We are able to develop Integrated Solutions, typically a more complex assembly or sub-system comprised of standard, modified and bespoke elements, for example, a motorised system with a machined housing or plate. For an integrated solution we offer further in-depth design engineering support which, together with our specialist manufacturing, assembly and test facilities, enables us to produce a wide range of custom-designed electro-mechanical, opto-mechanical, clean and high-vacuum solutions.

Reliance specialises in high accuracy, fine pitch gears for specialist servo, measurement and actuation mechanisms in aerospace, scientific, medical and instrumentation markets. Our heritage derives from over five decades of pioneering work in product development, manufacture and metrology.

Reliance offers a flexible range of services including concept design, detail design, design analysis, application modelling, diagnostic investigation, product development and prototyping, low to medium volume production, assembly and testing.

Reliance supplies custom-built mechanical and electro-mechanical assemblies for use in clean and high-vacuum applications.

These include products used for scientific, industrial and environmental analysis, and products used in the manufacture of semi-conductors.

Reliance has invested in modern cleanroom facilities and cleaning lines, together with stringent quality and process controls, to ensure the high level of cleanliness demanded from these industries.

Having over 20 years of experience, one of our core areas of expertise is the ability to manufacture, assemble and undertake mechanical and functional testing of quadrupole mass filters for use in LC, GC, ICP, SIFT and QToF mass spectrometers.

Through continued investment and development our capability has evolved into a state-of-the-art quadrupole manufacturing facility incorporating ion flight modelling, close tolerance rod and ceramic grinding, assembly in cleanroom conditions, a diverse range of fully automated component and assembly cleaning methods, as well as mechanical and functional testing.

Our range of precision gears offers a wide selection of anti-backlash gears, spur gears, hubless gears and hardened gears with many hundreds of thousands of combinations of bore size, face width, material, module and number of teeth. In line with our commitment to meeting customer requirements, any tooth number that can be configured for any given gear diameter can be supplied. This allows our customers ultimate flexibility when selecting their gear ratio and the ability to use the smallest or most practical centre distance.

Our brass spur gears are available from stock or on a short delivery and provides customers with an economical alternative for less demanding applications.

Manufactured from high grade brass, ISO CuZn39Pb3 with gear quality of ISO 9 − 10. The standard range of brass spur gears includes pinion shafts with tooth numbers as low as 10 and a small range of internal brass gears.

With gear sizes 0.5, 0.8 and 1.0 module available as standard, the precision fine pitch ground gear range are manufactured from chromium molybdenum steel, hardened to 49-55 HRc. The tooth profiles are manufactured to ISO grade 5, making then ideal for higher loaded, high revolution mechatronic applications.

Precision worms and wheels from Reliance. Worm and wheel drives provide high ratio right angled motion in a small space. Both precision cut and precision cold rolled worms are available (refer to the features, options and technical information on the individual product pages). In general, for more accurate applications the precision cut worms will give the best results and for applications requiring a little more torque transmission precision rolled worms should be used.

Bevel gears are more efficient than worms and wheels for right angle drives, but they are typically used for lower ratio applications; if high ratios are required a spur gear reduction stage can be incorporated. Typically shaft angles of 90 degrees are used but other angles are possible − please contact us to discuss your application.

As with the worms and wheels, bevel gears are available in stainless steel and brass; the stainless steel option being higher precision than the brass option. It is important to note that with the bevel gears, where two gears are shown on the page the part number refers to the gear pair. Where only one gear is shown on the page the part number applies to individual gears only − for a pair, two gears must be ordered.