Precision Machined
Plastic Components
Plastic Components
Expert reports predict that the market for plastic gears around the world will grow at a rate of about 4.4% each year between 2023 and 2028. In 2022, this market was already generating more than $414 million each year. By 2028, demand for plastic gears will be worth more than $561 million per year!
If you have never seen the benefits of custom plastic gears for yourself, this kind of industry success might come as a surprise. However, people who have worked with plastic gears before understand how many benefits this technology can provide.
We may not be used to thinking of plastic as a material that can compete in strength with metal, but plastic gears sometimes represent the best solution to an engineering problem. But what is it about custom plastic gears that allows them to provide so many different advantages?
Read on to learn all about the benefits that you might be able to enjoy with custom plastic gears!
People who have worked with plastic gears before often come back to them again and again because of the quality they provide. On the other hand, some people are first attracted to plastic gears because they can help them cut costs.
Although there are exceptions to this rule, plastic gears tend to cost less to create than metal gears. This is sometimes because their components are more affordable than metal. However, it is also worth noting that plastic gears do not require secondary finishing like metal alternatives do.
In some cases, you can cut your costs in half by investing in custom plastic gears. However, some people even cut their costs by 90% by switching to plastic gears.
Modern processes for shaping plastic products have become more and more flexible. These days, you can shape molding plastic into almost any shape imaginable.
Some gear shapes are so complicated that it’s difficult to cast them in metal. In such cases, custom plastic gears can sometimes provide you with the exact specifications you’re looking for.
One huge advantage of plastic gears over metal ones is that they’re immune to corrosion. Some manufacturers put a lot of work into making metal gears more resistant to corrosion. However, it’s hard for any amount of creativity to allow metal gears to match the natural resistance to corrosion that plastic gears provide.
In fact, plastic gears are resistant to a wide variety of kinds of damage. That can make them a great choice for chemical plants and systems that expose their gears to water on a regular basis.
Some people raise an eyebrow at the idea of plastic gears. However, as technology progresses, it is getting easier to create plastics with incredible strength.
On top of that, it is often easier to create wide gear designs out of plastic rather than metal. This extra width can allow plastic gears to provide even more strength than metal gears in many situations.
Many engineers understand that some people overweight strength when it comes to measuring the robustness of a gear. Gears often need to be able to absorb serious shocks, so resilience and flexibility can be as important as strength. The good news is that plastic gears can provide the perfect combination of strength and flexibility.
This also makes plastic gears more resistant to mistakes. If your plastic gears need to absorb a shock caused by misalignment, their greater flexibility will make them more forgiving than metal gear alternatives.
Another great benefit of using plastic gears is that they tend to produce less noise than most metal gears. In fact, as engineers have looked for ways to create quieter drives, they have often found themselves coming back to plastic gear solutions again and again. Once you’ve heard for yourself how big of a difference using plastic gears can make, you might be reluctant to ever return to metal gears.
Many people are used to thinking of gears as tools that require constant lubrication. However, this requirement is partially due to the idiosyncrasies of metal. Plastic gears tend to function as if they have a certain amount of natural lubrication.
That can make them a superior choice when you want consistent performance without having to wet gears with grease or oil.
In some situations, you might want to maximize lubrication. The good news is that you can apply grease or oil to plastic gears to cut down on even tiny amounts of friction.
As you might expect, plastic gears often weigh much less than metal ones. Sometimes, that can make them a necessary choice for system designs that need to emphasize low weights.
If your system cannot tolerate small flaws in your gears, you might want to use plastic ones. Modern plastic processing systems can create gears with amazing degrees of precision. You can now find AGMA Quality 10 plastic gears.
Many people are amazed when they discover how many different benefits custom plastic gears can provide. In some ways, modern plastic gears represent a strict technological improvement upon many traditional gear designs. Depending on your situation, plastic gears might be the perfect way to cut costs and improve performance.
To learn more about how you can find the best custom plastic gears for your needs, reach out and get in touch with us here at any time!