Industrial robot with retrofittable gear

Abstract

Provided is an industrial robot in which a gear for causing a work tool to rotate can easily be retrofitted to a robot without requiring work to adjust backlash. The present invention comprises: a first wrist element that, at the distal end of a front arm of a robot, is capable of rotating about a first axis following the longitudinal direction of the front arm; a second wrist element that, at the first wrist element, is capable of rotating about a second axis intersecting the first axis in a roughly perpendicular manner; a third wrist element that, at the second wrist element, is capable of rotating about a third axis extending from the intersection point of the first and second axes in a direction roughly perpendicular to the direction in which the second axis extends; a first gear that is attached to the third wrist element coaxially with the third axis and that is capable of rotating about the third axis; a second gear that is driven by rotation of the first gear due to meshing with the first gear and that is capable of rotating; and a case secured to the second wrist element. The second gear is attached to the case via a bearing so as to be capable of rotating about a fourth axis positioned at a prescribed distance relative to the third axis.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.