EP-WPEKA Double Speed Reducer
The EP-WPEKA is a purpose-built double worm gear reducer distinguished by its hollow output bore — a design feature that allows the driven shaft to pass directly through the gearbox housing rather than coupling to a solid stub shaft. This through-bore architecture is particularly valued in conveyor and agitator applications where shaft alignment tolerances are tight and axial space is restricted. The series spans input power from entry-level configurations up to 5.5 kW and covers an exceptionally broad weight range, from 20 kg at the compact 40-70 frame to 462 kg at the 155-250 heaviest frame, ensuring a correctly proportioned solution is always available regardless of the application’s torque demand.
The cascaded dual-worm architecture delivers overall worm gear reduction ratios from 1/200 through to 1/900, enabling very low output speeds from a standard 4-pole induction motor without any external intermediate shafts or belt reductions. Three shaft direction configurations — A, B, and C — accommodate different spatial requirements, with both single-input and opposing-shaft arrangements available. For procurement engineers comparing a double worm gearbox against a planetary stage or bevel-helical unit, the WPEKA’s primary advantages are its compact envelope, inherent output-shaft self-locking, and considerably lower unit cost per transmitted kilowatt at very high reduction ratios.
Industrial Power Transmission · Double Speed Series
EP-WPEKA Double Speed Reducer
A dual-stage hollow-output-bore double speed reducer engineered for high-torque, low-speed industrial drives — combining two worm reduction meshes in one rigid cast housing, from a lightweight 20 kg entry frame up to a 462 kg heavy-duty unit capable of continuous operation across the most demanding global manufacturing environments.
Technical Specifications — EP-WPEKA Double Speed Reducer Series
All external dimensions in mm. Weight in kg. Ratios listed are representative per frame size.
| Double Speed ReducerSize | Verhouding | A | AA | AB | B | BE | HL | LL | H | HA | HB | M | N | E | F | Z | Output Bore W×Y (mm) | Input Shaft T×V (mm) | Weight (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40-70 | 1/200 | 286 | 195 | 153 | 130 | 87 | 110 | 140 | 236 | 70 | 50 | 150 | 190 | 115 | 150 | 20 | 8×33.3 | 4×2,5 | 20 |
| 50-80 | 1/300 | 297 | 197 | 144 | 150 | 108 | 130 | 160 | 268 | 80 | 65 | 170 | 220 | 135 | 180 | 20 | 10×38.3 | 4×2,5 | 27 |
| 60-100 | 1/400 | 363 | 231 | 175 | 160 | 120 | 160 | 200 | 336 | 100 | 75 | 190 | 270 | 155 | 220 | 25 | 12×43.3 | 5×3 | 44 |
| 70-120 | 1/500 | 408 | 256 | 193 | 175 | 140 | 190 | 240 | 430 | 120 | 90 | 230 | 320 | 180 | 260 | 30 | 14×48.8 | 5×3 | 73 |
| 80-135 | 1/600 | 471 | 298 | 226 | 210 | 160 | 215 | 270 | 480 | 135 | 105 | 250 | 350 | 200 | 290 | 30 | 18×64.4 | 7×4 | 101 |
| 100-155 | 1/800 | 555 | 354 | 269 | 256 | 190 | 235 | 290 | 531 | 135 | 130 | 275 | 390 | 220 | 320 | 35 | 20×74.9 | 7×4 | 144 |
| 120-175 | 1/900 | 598 | 379 | 287 | 282 | 219 | 280 | 335 | 600 | 160 | 155 | 310 | 430 | 250 | 350 | 40 | 22×85.4 | 7×4 | 201 |
| 135-200 | —— | 662 | 425 | 318 | 320 | 256 | 310 | 375 | 666 | 175 | 185 | 360 | 480 | 290 | 390 | 40 | 22×90.4 | 10×4,5 | 293 |
| 155-250 | —— | 795 | 510 | 380 | 400 | 295 | 355 | 450 | 800 | 200 | 203 | 460 | 560 | 380 | 480 | 45 | 28×116.4 | 12×5 | 462 |
Output shaft dimensions listed as W×Y (bore diameter × bore depth, mm). Input shaft as T×V (key width × key depth, mm). Contact our technical team for non-catalogue ratios and custom bore configurations.
Five Key Advantages of the EP-WPEKA Double Speed Reducer
Hollow Output Bore Design
Unlike solid-stub-shaft gearboxes, the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's hollow bore accepts the driven shaft directly through the housing, eliminating misalignment-inducing couplings and reducing overall drivetrain axial length. This is a preferred configuration for conveyor head shafts and mixer spindles across food, aggregate, and chemical processing industries.
Ultra-High Reduction in One Stage
Cascaded dual-worm meshing achieves ratios up to 1/900 within a single compact housing — territory that would otherwise require two separate gearboxes in series, additional shaft couplings, and significantly more floor space. The result is a cleaner machine layout and fewer potential failure points in the drivetrain.
Three Configurable Shaft Directions
Configurations A, B, and C cover single-sided and dual-opposed input/output arrangements, giving machine designers the freedom to route drives around obstacles and fit gearboxes into constrained structural envelopes. This flexibility makes the WPEKA a preferred double worm gear drive for retrofit projects where a new unit must fit an existing footprint.
Built-In Load Holding
The worm gear pair's inherent self-locking characteristic — where the output cannot back-drive the input when the helix angle falls below the friction threshold — removes the need for a separate holding brake on vertically loaded or inclined drive applications. This simplifies the electrical installation and reduces overall system cost, especially in lifting and gate-actuator applications across the UK and Canadian markets.
Global OEM Supply Ready
Produced under ISO 9001:2015 certification with standardised IEC motor flanges across the full power range, the WPEKA ships to verified OEM buyers in Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil, South Korea, Colombia, Canada, and the UK with full material traceability documentation, making it straightforward to satisfy local procurement compliance requirements on first purchase.
How the Double Worm Gear Drive Operates
The WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's operating principle centres on two independent worm-and-wheel mesh pairs arranged in series within the same cast housing. Rotational power enters through the input shaft — connected directly to the primary worm — which sits at 90° to the primary worm wheel. The wheel is keyed to an intermediate shaft, and that shaft carries the secondary worm. The secondary worm in turn engages the secondary worm wheel, which is mounted on the hollow output bore shaft. This sequential double-mesh arrangement means each stage contributes its own reduction, and their combined effect produces the overall gear ratio printed on the nameplate.
One practical consequence of this cascaded design is that the output shaft rotates extremely slowly relative to the motor — down to fractions of a revolution per minute at the highest ratios — while the torque multiplied at each stage means the output can handle substantial radial and axial loads from the driven shaft passing through the bore. The double worm reduction gearbox geometry also limits the maximum theoretical efficiency of the unit (typically 50–70% across the cascade), which means thermal management is an important design consideration for continuous-duty high-power applications. For most light-to-medium cycle applications, the ribbed cast housing provides sufficient surface area to dissipate generated heat within safe operating limits.
The self-locking property arises because worm thread lead angles below approximately 5° prevent the wheel from rotating the worm in reverse under gravitational or process loads. This is a characteristic of the double output worm gearbox geometry and not a separate add-on component — it is inherent in the geometry of the worm thread, which is why design engineers specify the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer wherever an unpowered load-holding condition must be guaranteed without a secondary brake.
Double Speed Reducer Materials & Construction Standards
The WPEKA Double Speed Reducer housing is investment cast in high-quality grey cast iron, selected primarily for its outstanding vibration absorption and its stability across the temperature cycling encountered in continuous industrial operation. For high-impact or corrosive environments — common in Australian mining support, Colombian aggregate processing, and Dutch water treatment installations — ductile iron and cast steel housing options can be specified at the design stage to raise impact toughness beyond what grey iron can reliably deliver.
Both worm shafts — primary and secondary — are machined from alloy case-hardened steel, through-hardened at the core and surface-hardened to 58–62 HRC after carburising. Thread flanks are precision-ground to DIN 3975 accuracy grades, which governs the contact pattern against the bronze wheel and directly influences running noise and service life. Worm wheels are centrifugally cast in high-tin phosphor bronze, hobbed to mesh with the hardened steel worm, and mounted on the intermediate and output shafts with interference-fit keys. The material combination — steel worm on bronze wheel — is the standard for worm gear reducer manufacturers worldwide because it provides controlled break-in wear that improves contact during early operation while maintaining dimensional stability thereafter.
Output bore shaft surfaces are finished to H7 tolerance to accommodate standard interference or sliding fits with the driven shaft. Bearing selections include deep-groove ball bearings at the input and angular contact or tapered roller bearings at the output, providing adequate axial load capacity for the radial forces generated when the hollow bore receives the cantilever load of the driven shaft. External finishing is a two-coat primed and topcoated paint system, available in the standard green finish characteristic of this worm cast reducer product line, or in alternative blue and white options for facility-specific colour coding requirements.
Double Speed Reducer Application Scenarios
The through-bore output of the WPEKA double speed reducer opens application possibilities that are unavailable with a conventional stub-shaft gearbox. The following sectors represent the primary deployment environments for this series across our established global customer base.
🥁 Screw & Auger Conveyors
Grain handling elevators, cement screw feeders, and plastic pellet auger conveyors benefit from the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's hollow bore because the auger shaft slides directly through the gearbox, removing the need for a separate output coupling and shaft adaptor. This configuration is standard in Australian grain export terminals and Canadian fertiliser mixing plants where belt-conveyor replacements frequently specify this type of drive.
🔄 Agitator & Stirrer Drives
Wastewater treatment stirrers, fermentation tank agitators, and paint mixing vessels are typical fits for the WPEKA because the through-bore lets the stirrer shaft extend to any depth into the vessel without additional coupling hardware above the gearbox. The high torque worm gearbox output at very low RPM is exactly the operating condition these applications demand continuously over years of service in the Netherlands and UK chemical sectors.
🏗️ Gate & Valve Actuators
Sluice gate drives, butterfly valve actuators, and industrial shutter mechanisms use the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's self-locking output to hold the gate position when power is off — an important safety function on flood-control and irrigation infrastructure across Brazil and Colombia. The heavy duty worm drive gearbox frames (135-200 and 155-250) are most commonly specified for large-bore gate actuator installations where manual override torque requirements must also be met.
📦 Indexing & Positioning Tables
Rotary indexing tables and servo-less positioning fixtures in light manufacturing use smaller WPEKA frames (40-70 through 70-120) to achieve precise, repeatable station-to-station movement from an ordinary induction motor. The extremely high ratio capability — combined with the output bore accepting the table centre shaft — is a practical alternative to expensive servo-driven epicyclic units for applications that don't require dynamic repositioning in South Korean electronics assembly and packaging operations.
🌾 Agricultural Processing Equipment
Root vegetable washers, fodder mixers, and slow-speed crop-turning machinery use the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's robust housing and self-locking characteristic. Agricultural duty imposes shock and unbalanced loading that tests housing rigidity — the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's thick-section cast walls and broad bearing span handle these conditions over multi-season service life without the fatigue cracking seen on lighter-section competitors in demanding UK and Australian farm machinery contexts.
Over onze productiefaciliteit
With over ten years of accumulated expertise in mechanical power transmission, our facility produces an integrated portfolio of drive components: agricultural gearboxes, worm gear speed reducers, planetary gear drives, PTO shafts, hydraulic cylinders, precision gears, roller chains, and electric motors. This product breadth means we understand how the WPEKA functions within a real machine system — not merely as a standalone catalogue item — and that operational perspective informs every dimensional and material decision across the production process.
We manufacture under ISO 9001:2015 certification, which applies to all stages of production: raw material verification, casting quality, machining, assembly, and final inspection. Our fabrication capabilities span ductile iron, cast iron, cast steel, precision cast steel, and cast aluminium housings, plus in-house production of gears, sprockets, worm gears, pulleys, worm shafts, and a broad catalogue of standard and non-standard transmission components. OEM double speed worm gear reducer supplier requests — covering customised ratios, non-standard bore sizes, and special mounting feet — are handled routinely as part of our normal engineering workflow rather than treated as exceptions requiring lengthy approval chains.
Workshop
Related Products & Compatible Components
A double speed reducer performs best when its input and output interfaces are correctly matched. The two product categories below are the most commonly paired components and are available from the same facility — eliminating the dimensional uncertainty that arises when sourcing a motor from one supplier and a gearbox from another.
Elektromotoren
Standard IEC-frame induction motors in B3, B5, and B14 mounting configurations, available across the full WPEKA input power range. Input flanges are machined to interface directly with the WPEKA's standardised motor mount, ensuring correct shaft engagement depth and concentricity without site-made adaptors. The electrical motors double speed worm gear reducer combination ordered as a matched set ships pre-assembled and test-run, reducing installation time on site.
Wormwieloverbrenging
Beyond the double-stage WPEKA, the single-reduction nmrv worm reducer, WP, and WPS families cover ratios from 1/5 to 1/100 for applications that don't require the extreme high-ratio capability of the double-stage unit. Whether you need a compact worm reducer kit for a light-duty positioning actuator or a premium worm reducer for a continuous-duty conveyor, the single-stage range addresses those requirements while maintaining the same flange standards as the WPEKA.
Veelgestelde vragen
Q1 — What makes a hollow-bore double speed reducer like the EP-WPEKA a better fit than a solid-shaft gearbox for industrial screw conveyor applications in Australia?
The hollow-bore through-shaft configuration eliminates the separate output coupling entirely — the driven screw shaft simply slides through the gearbox bore and is locked with a keyway on the output side. This removes one misalignment source, shortens the overall drive assembly length, and reduces the part count on the installation. On conveyor drives subject to vibration and thermal expansion — common in Australian bulk-handling environments — fewer joints mean fewer potential loosening points over time. The hollow bore also allows greater driven-shaft diameter flexibility, since the shaft is not constrained by a coupling's bore range.
Q2 — How do I calculate the correct worm gear reduction ratio for a wastewater agitator drive running at approximately 2 RPM output in a UK water treatment facility?
With a standard 4-pole 50 Hz motor running at approximately 1440 RPM, a 2 RPM target output requires an overall ratio of 720:1 — so a 1/800 ratio WPEKA Double Speed Reducer (100-155 frame) would be the closest catalogue option, giving you approximately 1.8 RPM at rated motor speed. Confirm that the output torque available at that ratio exceeds your agitator's required torque — factoring in a service factor of 1.5 for reversing or variable-viscosity duty — before finalising the frame size. Your motor power selection should be driven by output torque demand rather than the rated input power printed on the gearbox nameplate.
Q3 — Which shaft direction configuration of the EP-WPEKA double worm gearbox should be specified for a vertical gate actuator drive used on irrigation sluice infrastructure in Brazil?
Configuration B — with the input shaft entering from the side and the output bore oriented vertically — is the standard choice for vertical-shaft actuator applications. This positions the motor horizontally, which is structurally more stable on mounting platforms above water channels and simplifies motor protection from ingress. In all sluice gate applications, the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's self-locking output eliminates the need for a separate electromechanical brake, which is a significant reliability advantage in remote irrigation installations where brake maintenance may be infrequent. Always confirm the worm lead angle at the selected ratio ensures self-locking under the expected gate load.
Q4 — What is the typical service life of a double worm gear reducer in continuous three-shift industrial operation, and how does lubrication affect it for plants in the Netherlands?
Under correctly specified lubrication, proper alignment, and within rated load limits, a well-maintained WPEKA-type double worm gear reducer will typically achieve a L10 service life exceeding 20,000 hours in continuous operation. In the Netherlands, where ambient temperatures in industrial halls are generally moderate (15–25 °C), a mineral ISO VG 220 gear oil changed every 5,000 hours is sufficient for most applications. For higher ambient temperatures or if the gearbox operates above 70% of its thermal rating, synthetic ISO VG 220 oil extends change intervals and reduces viscosity-related power losses. Lip seal inspection at each oil change is the single most effective maintenance action for preventing contamination-related premature wear in humid coastal environments.
Q5 — Where can procurement managers in South Korea source an OEM double speed worm gear reducer with complete ISO documentation for a packaging machinery line retrofit project?
ISO 9001:2015 certified manufacturing facilities that produce the WPEKA series maintain full documentation packages as standard — including material certificates for housing castings, dimensional inspection records for each unit, and hydrostatic or no-load run-test records before dispatch. South Korean procurement teams should request a sample documentation package from any supplier under evaluation before placing a trial order, and verify that the motor flange dimensions are confirmed against IEC 60034 frame standards, which are the international reference point for flange compatibility in packaging machinery. Facilities that also supply matched electric motors can provide a factory-assembled and tested motor-gearbox unit, which reduces site commissioning time significantly on retrofit projects.
Q6 — How does a double reduction worm gearbox compare to a planetary gearbox when specifying a high-torque low-speed drive for agricultural processing equipment in Canada?
For output speeds below approximately 5 RPM and ratios above 1/200, the double reduction worm gearbox is typically the lower total-cost choice — both in unit price and installation complexity — compared to a planetary unit of equivalent torque capacity. Planetary gearboxes achieve higher efficiency (often 95–98% per stage versus 50–70% for a worm stage), which matters on continuously running high-power drives. But for lower-power agricultural applications — fodder mixers, root washers, seed augers — where the motor runs for short cycles and installed cost matters more than efficiency, the WPEKA Double Speed Reducer's cost-per-ratio-point and its built-in self-locking are compelling advantages that the planetary topology cannot match without adding a brake and a second reduction stage.
Redacteur: PXY
