A few weeks ago I wrote about the Abacus Drive, a new rotary transmission that could find its way into vehicles very soon. The Abacus was an evolutionary step forward from harmonic gears. They do similar things in similar ways and the idea of both of them is to increase or decrease the gear ratios available and do it in the smallest, most robust package. In 1957 Clarence … [Read more...]
Could an Automatic Gearbox Shifter Cause an Accident?
I have been reading reports from the US recently that suggest that manufacturers have been going too far in making things easy for the driver, when it comes to using an automatic gearbox! The whole concept was to make it easier, so to take it a step further is quite a feat. In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received hundreds of … [Read more...]
Automatic Transmissions
Did you know that the original version of the modern type of automatic transmission is nearly 100 years old? This is true, however it took about 20 years to reach the automobile! The first automatic transmission that we would recognise today was developed in the early 1920s by Alfred Horner Munro, a Canadian engineer, who developed his to use compressed air to act as the … [Read more...]
Continuously Variable Transmissions
The Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) was first patented in Europe in 1886 and a US patent was taken out in 1935. Automotive Engineering Online is quoted as saying that Leonardo Da Vinci drew a sketch of a CVT in 1490 and a rudimentary version appeared on the Clyno (a British car) of 1923. The concept of CVT is to make an infinite number of gear speeds by using a … [Read more...]