Homemade transmission.. just a thought

[Beeman]

Going somewhat along the open diff skid steering theme, I would wonder if you could get two small torque converters, mount them both against a central driving sprocket and have brakes mounted to shafts coming out on each end. Somehow seal up the two TC's to flow fluid between the two and install some sort of filling/drain plug to one of them. Maybe some vanes to keep the temp down.

I would theorize that at low speeds, it would be easy to turn.. but as you get into the higher speeds, the steering would become "tighter".. which may be the only benefit to the idea.

Thoughts?

[LarryW]

Im having a hard time figure out what your thinking. So there is a torque converter on each side and to turn you are just power braking one side or is there a differential between the 2?

[Groundhog]

Those are neat ideas. I am not sure how you would make the torque converters work. It would be interesting to combine torque converters with braking somehow.

I have always wanted to salvage some planitary gear sets out of an automatic transmission and use some lightweight calipers and disks from a dirt bike. You could make a super light weight arrangement like the original Attex setup. It would be nice to have the hydraulic calipers, and the major weight reduction of modern brake discs.

Any thoughts?

[Stonewall]

Beeman,

I don't think that's going to work, or if it did it'd be really hard and probably take quite a bit of machine work. The problem that I see is that the fluid on a TC flows in and out of the output side. From what I understand of your idea, you are wanting to link the flywheel sides on a common drive, so your output shafts will be pointing opposite directions. It would take a very well thought out and elaborate system to link them, but you might be able to work out a way to use them sepratly. Another thing is torque converters are designed to only spin in one direction. For this application, they would be turning opposite directions, (due to being mounted back to back) and you would have to come up with two similarly sized TC's that spun opposite directions. This also means that if you want reverse, you would have to use individual gear boxes on each side after the TC.

I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to mount a flywheel on the PTO shaft of one of our engines, then put a TC attached to a Hi-Lo-Rev gearbox, then from that go to a small differential(maybe a limited slip from the front of a 4x4 4 wheeler or a locking one from a Polaris Ranger) , and some dirt bike disc brakes. There ought to be some way to get rid of the belt drive system we all have now.

[Bw6]

Counter Rotating Planetary Transmission

Counter Rotating Planetary Transmission.pdf

I'll probably never have time to build this transmission, but it may be of interest to someone. I designed it to be a mechanical alternative to a hydrostatic transmission.

I think the concept will work, but I may have missed something, if you have any questions I try to answer them.

1. Changing drive belt will require some dis-assembly.
2. Planetary gears are lubricated via ATF sealed system.
3. Width of transmission to suit chain troughs (no jack-shafts)

[Beeman]

Hmm.. didn't think about not working in reverse, but if TC's just freewheeled in reverse direction then you could get 4 of them, two driven ones butted up against each other (with one of Ray's counter rotation gearsets in between), and then two more driven directly by gear to gear (off the driven ones - so each side has a TC turning in each direction).. the outputs of each pair of TC's would connect to the main driving shafts (with brakes) then you'd only need a transmission for speed (CVT or other).

I guess one would have to find out what the effect of feedback was into a TC in either direction.

hmm..

[Stonewall]

Here's a few things to think about; you can't run any shafts thru the centers of the TC's, everything will have to go around them. Your design also just got really big and really heavy. TC's aren't exactly lightweight, and your talking about having 4 of them, full of ATF, plus planetery gearsets, input, and 2 outputs on each side...all that is going to take up alot of space too. I'm not trying to discourage your idea, or the use of TC's, but I just don't think that this is going to work like you want it to.

What about using a TC on the engine instead of a belt CVT, then a 2 speed gearbox w/reverse driving a right angel shaft with one of Ray's planetarys on each end?

[Beeman]

What about using a TC on the engine instead of a belt CVT, then a 2 speed gearbox w/reverse driving a right angel shaft with one of Ray's planetarys on each end?

That could work as well - but I really wanted to take advantage of the TC's closer to the end drive. I think it would be neat to try and make a skid steering system using them taking advantage of their "variable clutch" effect. I do agree that 4 would be considered cumbersome and I don't normally like to add more than I have to.

[Stonewall]

In that case, your best bet will probably be 2 TC's like in your origional idea with F-N-R gearboxes on each side.

[LarryW]

To kind of go with stonewall saying tc are heavy. It is also moving weight which would require more HP.

[Beeman]

Yeah, I guess they would be heavy.

Here's a neat video I found of a TC in action --> Видео с описанием принципа работы гидротрансфор� �атора | NDGS

From the animation it looks like you should be able to reverse them, but would loose some torque transfer via the stator that's designed for the one direction.

[NERO]

I see this was an older thread,but wanted to say that atric cat had a tranmission once on a snowmobile called a cat-a-matic and it had a touque conver that was small and it was mounted to a two stroke .it could be resereched on the net.
Tom