Planetary gearbox, 40 mm frame, 16:1 reduction
The GBX0400160552F is a planetary gearbox from Schneider Electric's GBX series, with straight-cut teeth and a 40 mm outer diameter housing. It's built for servo and stepper motor applications where you need a compact, right-angle speed reducer in a small-frame package — think pick-and-place axes, indexing tables, or conveyor drives that don't have room for a larger gearbox. The 16:1 reduction ratio steps the motor speed down and multiplies torque accordingly. At 100 rpm output, it delivers 32 N.m (283.2 lbf.in) maximum, which is the figure to size against your load's peak torque demand — not the continuous rating, but the ceiling before mechanical limits kick in. Efficiency sits at 94 %, which is typical for a single-stage planetary of this size. That means about 6 % of the input power turns into heat inside the housing — the black anodized aluminium body sheds that heat to the surrounding air, and the gearbox is lubricated for life, so there's no oil-change interval to track.
Backlash, forces, and service life — the real fit checks
Maximum torsional backlash is 28 arc.min, which is on the looser side for a planetary. If your application needs position repeatability under a few arc-minutes — like a cam-index station or a ball-screw-driven axis — this gearbox's backlash will show up as lost motion at direction reversals. It's fine for positioning that doesn't need to hold tight angular accuracy. Rated service life is 30,000 hours at 100 rpm and 86 °F (30 °C). If you're running it slower or cooler, life extends; hotter or faster, it shortens. The axial and radial force limits are 200 N each for a 10,000-hour life, dropping to 160 N for the full 30,000-hour rating — both measured at mid-span on the output shaft. Exceed those and the bearings wear out before the gearset does. Torsional rigidity is 1.1 N.m/arcmin — that's the stiffness of the gear train itself, not the housing. A load of 1.1 N.m will twist the output shaft by one arc-minute relative to the input. Stack that on top of the backlash figure when you're calculating total positioning error in a closed-loop system.
Obsolete — sourcing through independent channels
Because it's obsolete, there is no official successor part number from Schneider. If your BOM calls for this exact code and you need to keep a line running, the route is a last-time-buy from surplus or broker inventory. We quote each request individually — send the quantity and target lead time, and we'll source against that.