Constructing a Continuously Variable Transmission

What about buying one instead of building your own? There's been a handful of cars in the last 5 years with CVT's, you could probably find one at the junkyard or an auction, pull the CVT and scrap the rest of the vehicle.

Probably cheaper than designing and building one from scratch, unless that's a big part of the project.

Ray

If you are looking to use it on a low power unit then just find a junk motor scooter.

I did think about this, but I kinda need one smaller than the ones that I suspect will be found as part of a car.

Cheers

Tim

Try a snowmobile...

Riding lawnmowers.

Are you a machinist? Are you a metallurgist? Can you heat treat?

No tips on constructing one, but here's the basic principle:

4 V-belt pulley halves and some actuators to make them open and close in opposition to each other shouldn't be too hard to construct in a machine shop, given enough time and money. V-belts are cheap and plentiful, just pick one with the right V angle and width. The belt will probably need to be quite wide to accommodate a useful range of ratios, so you might look into V-belts designed for industrial or agricultural applications rather than automotive.

As mentioned, a scooter is probably a good source for a small CVT.

Look on the net for, Comet Torque Converters. cuhulin