Posted by Andy Bellocchio on March 09, 2005 at 21:31:30:
In Reply to: is there a formula to figure out the exact location for pinions in a set of a planetary gears posted by Jeff Mentzer on February 11, 2005 at 12:09:44:
This gives you pinions with 26 teeth (Nr=Ns+2Np). To mesh pinions, the number of ring teeth (Nr) plus the number of sun teeth (Ns) divided by the number of pinions must be a whole number.
(Ns+Nr)/#pinions=whole number. So no, you cannot have 5 pinions evenly spaced. 4 pinions works as well as 2 and 3. You cannot have 6 or more pinions because they pinions will overlap each other.