Sprocket

Pinion is in accordance with DIN the name for the smaller and generally driving gear of a gear pair. Due to its small size, it often forms a unit with the shaft ( pinion shaft, see figure).

In almost all areas of industrial applications - especially in the mechanical gear clocks and two wheels - in differing usages of the term have fixed that contradict the exquisitely intended for mechanical engineering DIN definition.

Engineering

The drive pinion is referred to in the mechanical and automotive motor side, the driving gear or sprocket that transmits the force of the engine to a larger wheel on the machine or the vehicle.

The pinion is also a small bevel gear, as is for example used in a differential gear to be. The pinion drives this to the larger gear.

Mechanical clock

The Clocks, the engine is common for the smaller wheel of a gear stage of the term. Pinion is an obsolete term here. In a clock, it is usually the driven gear and has less than 20 teeth.

Two-wheeler

When a single gear bike at the rear wheel is preferred, less often called a ring gear as a pinion, the totality of the sprockets as sprocket assembly, cassette or sprockets. About the front of the bottom bracket located chainring and a rear sprocket, a chain is guided for power transmission. Driving the front wheel of the bicycle is not called pinion even when it is smaller than the driven gear.

When the motorcycle with the chain drive of the motor-side gear is always the pinion even when it is larger than the driven gear.