Can’t find a straight answer for this anywhere on the internet…
If I were to gear a motor down using a 10:1 ratio, how much would the torque go up?
I sort of assumed that it would go up by ten times…but maybe not.
i.e. What would the resultant torque be on a motor that developed 300mN-m at 12000rpm when it was geared down by two 10:1 ratio gears - the speed would now be 120rpm.
Thanks in advance! 
theChipmunk
In an ideal world yes torque would go up 10x for a 1/10 trade off in rpm. However in the real world you need to consider the efficiency of your gearbox could be anywhere from ~40% with worm or poor spur gears to ~100% with a belt drive.
But theoretically it would go up 10x?
Obviously I’m taking into account the fact that efficiency should be terrible. 
Two bog-standard cogs, with a low coefficient of friction should be more than 25% efficient, shouldn’t they?
Thanks,
theChipmunk
there are so many possible variables with this I don’t see how anybody could really say one way or another. even a minor shaft misalignment or non-parallelism between the gears can have major impacts of the net efficiency, and that efficiency can change depending on the applied load as well. 
Yep. It’s going to be hilariously difficult to maintain alignment in some of the delicate sensors that’ll be onboard this model…
Why can’t real life be like AutoCAD?*
theChipmunk
*Good job it isn’t, actually, since I never learnt how to use any CAD program, mainly because there was a distinct lack of free ones around when I was starting out!
