Hobbs transmission Among the most interesting mechanical infinitely variable gears is the Hobbs " gearlesa "

transmission. The essential element of this transmission is an epicyclic train consisting of a disk carrying two planet wheels on each of which there is an eccentric weight, throwing the planet wheel markedly out of balance. Meshing with the planet wheels is a sun wheel keyed to a shaft fitted to the forward end of a long laminated spring shaft. This spring shaft, together with a roller clutch of special type, takes the place of what, in other types of infinitely variable gears, would be the ratchet, or " mechanical valve." In other words it smooths out the drive and converts it from a series of impulses to a steady flow. The action of the gear is mainly the result of the unbalanced forces set up when the two planet wheels with their eccentric weights are rotated on their disk by the engine. It is clear that the weights will tend all the time to fly out, and that if the disk were turned fast enough, the weights would, under the influence of centrifugal force, remain out and would prevent the planet wheels from turning at all. This condition, being the simplest, may be considered first. Imagine the disk mounted on the engine and carrying its two planet wheels with their eccentric weights. Imagine that the engine is started and that the disk rotates and that a slight braking effect is placed upon the planet wheels. The planet wheels will then rotate independently as well as with the disk. But as the speed increases, the eccentric weights will tend to fly out with increasing force, and if the planet wheels are still to rotate independently, a much greater braking effect would have to be applied to them. If it is not applied, then the disk will rotate, carrying the planet wheels with it, those planet wheels not rotating independently at all. If, therefore, the planet wheels were connected with another gear wheel, a sun wheel, for example, the sun wheel would be taken round with them as if the whole assembly were locked together. In this condition the driven shaft keyed to the sun wheel would be rotated at exactly engine speed and a direct drive top gear would result. But supposing now that a braking effect, which might result, for example, if the car were being driven up a hill or being started from rest, were applied to the sun wheel. If it were strong enough it would overcome the centrifugal force acting on the eccentric weights and force the planet wheels to spin independently as well as with the disk. And in so far as the braking effect is increased so will be the speed of the planet wheels. The result is that as the braking effect (or load on the car) increases, the gear will be progressively lowered.
A complication is brought into the operation of the gear by the action of the eccentric weights, which do not move with perfect smoothness, inasmuch as they are moving freely in one direction and under constraint in another. They are balanced one against another, but even that does not entirely smooth out the drive, and therefore behind the sun wheel is introduced a roller type of clutch, which, however, can be controlled by the driver for reversing, and the previously mentioned spring shaft made up of a number of laminations. The drive is transmitted through this clutch and along the shaft, so that all jerkiness is damped out and a smooth turning effort is achieved. This gear has been tried with success in an experimental car and has attracted a great deal of interest from engineers.

variomatic is the stepless, fully automatic transmission of the Dutch car manufacturer DAF, originally developed by Hub van Doorne: this consists of a "V" shaped drive belt and two pulleys, each of two cones, whose effective diameter can be changed so that the "V" belt runs nearer the spindle or nearer the rim, depending on the separation of the cones. These are synchronized so that the belt always remains at the same optimal tension. It was the first commercially successful continuously variable transmission (CVT) (as opposed to shifting between separate gears). In theory, this always produces the optimum torque. The variomatic was introduced by DAF in 1958, also putting an automatic gear box in the Netherlands for the first time. The variomatic was introduced on the DAF 600. Because the system does not have separate gears, but one (continuously shifting) gear and a separate 'reverse mode' (as opposed to a reverse gear), the gear works in reverse as well, giving it the interesting side effect that one can drive backwards as fast as forwards. As a result, in the former Dutch annual backward driving world championship, the DAFs had to be put in a separate competition because no other car could keep up. Thus, these very cheap and simple cars were the 'formula one' in this competition. Manual transmission remains dominant in Europe. When DAF was taken over by Volvo, the Variomatic patents were transferred to a company called VDT (Van Doorne Transmissie), later taken over by Bosch. VDT continued development of the CVT and introduced a pushband system in the Ford Fiesta and Fiat Uno. Audi reintroduced an improved version of the variomatic in 2000 under the name multitronic. This system uses a metal belt and lacks a limit to the number of gears available, switching between them without noticeable shocks. These metal drive belts are the most important part of CVT. The only factory still producing these belts, the Bosch

factory in the Netherlands, produced the ten millionth belt on 9 May 2007. It is used in over 40 car models, these days even including expensive brands like Mercedes-Benz. The final drive has two pulleys with moveable conical drums. The distance between the drums is controlled by the engine vacuum in the inlet manifold and engine RPM, through centrifugal weights inside the drums. Between the two pulleys runs a drive belt. As a result of change in the distance of the conical drums in both pulleys, the diameters and so also the reduction ratio changes continuously.[1] With the DAF 600 - 55 each rear wheel was propelled individually by a pair of conical drums and drive belt with the effect of a limited slip differential: if a drive wheel on slippery road revs up, the other wheel can still transfer the full torque. This results in unusually good traction characteristics, which were also a reason for successes of the DAFs in rallies. There were several disadvantages that accompanied the lack of a true differential gear. Although each belt could settle (independent of the other) into its optimum position, thus allowing for wheel speed variation, the system was slow to operate and depended on the pulleys being turned. This led to rapid tire wear and placed stress on other transmission components. Snapped drive shafts were common. Low speed handling in icy conditions was interesting as the system tended to drive the car forward against the influence of the steered wheels. Later cars, the 46, 66 and Volvo variants were fitted with a differentially geared axle.