Experimental Evaluation of a 3D-Printed Trochoidal Gear Reducer Using Potassium Titanate Fiber-Reinforced Filament

3D printing technology offers a promising ap- proach for fabricating lightweight and low cost versions of traditionally heavy and expensive components, such as gear reducers. While previous work exists on plastic based reducers, challenges related to low stiffness remain. In this paper, we designed and prototyped a trochoidal gear reducer primarily constructed from a high strength potassium titanate fiber- reinforced material. We conducted a comparative evaluation of two material variants, the nylon based NTL34M and the more stiff PPS based RT4. The experimental results showed no significant difference between the two materials such as no- load running current, joint stiffness, and static torque efficiency. However, in dynamic torque efficiency measurement, the RT4 reducer outperformed the NTL34M version.