--- title: Testing A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox Design | daily.dev description: A hobbyist tests a 3D printed cycloidal gearbox designed to fit NEMA 17 stepper motors, comparing it against a planetary gearbox alternative. Testing revealed... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/testing-a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-design-1nrjqtjd4 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Testing A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox Design | daily.dev og:description: A hobbyist tests a 3D printed cycloidal gearbox designed to fit NEMA 17 stepper motors, comparing it against a planetary gearbox alternative. Testing revealed... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/testing-a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-design-1nrjqtjd4 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/1NRjQtJd4.png og:image:alt: Testing A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox Design og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Testing A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox Design **[Hackaday](https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A hobbyist tests a 3D printed cycloidal gearbox designed to fit NEMA 17 stepper motors, comparing it against a planetary gearbox alternative. Testing revealed 92% efficiency and lower noise than a comparable 3D printed planetary gearbox. The design uses FDM printing with a few metal parts, and print/project files are publicly available. A dual-nested cycloidal design offering even greater compactness and fewer parts is also mentioned as an alternative. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Show HN: I'm a 15 Year Old Wannabe Engineer, This Is a Cycloidal Gearbox I Built](https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-m-a-15-year-old-wannabe-engineer-this-is-a-cycloidal-gearbox-i-built-q18aspi5w) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox](https://daily.dev/posts/a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-vu31jlnoj) · Hackaday · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [3D Printing A Harmonic Pin-Ring Gearing Drive](https://daily.dev/posts/3d-printing-a-harmonic-pin-ring-gearing-drive-gll3ggv62) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A low-cost NEMA-17 4-in-1 servomotor with driver, motion controller, and encoder](https://daily.dev/posts/a-low-cost-nema-17-4-in-1-servomotor-with-driver-motion-controller-and-encoder-dbz9xzwyx) · CNX Software · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building And Testing A DIY Robot Actuator](https://daily.dev/posts/building-and-testing-a-diy-robot-actuator-itee3ts3w) · Hackaday · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/testing-a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-design-1nrjqtjd4) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Testing A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox Design","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/testing-a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-design-1nrjqtjd4","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/testing-a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-design-1nrjqtjd4"},"datePublished":"2026-08-01T11:23:25.779Z","dateModified":"2026-08-01T15:32:10.705Z","description":"A hobbyist tests a 3D printed cycloidal gearbox designed to fit NEMA 17 stepper motors, comparing it against a planetary gearbox alternative. Testing revealed...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/b1a785903fa52130f6222b0274e840ea?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/b1a785903fa52130f6222b0274e840ea?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hackaday","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hackaday","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--JhDfhy70--/f_auto,q_auto/v1767541814/logos/hackaday","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/testing-a-3d-printed-cycloidal-gearbox-design-1nrjqtjd4","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hackaday","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Testing A 3D Printed Cycloidal Gearbox Design"}]} ```