Chemnitz Industrial Museum – Our visit to the Chemnitz Industrial Museum reminded us once again of the boom times in the textile and automotive industries,

when the applied technology was considered a prime example of German engineering, and the industry was correspondingly progressive and open to innovation and progress. Why is that now history?

Looking at the problems in the automotive industry today, one unfortunately has to conclude that real progress and so-called technological openness are repeatedly postponed as problems, and in the end, the question of government aid dominates everything. We were once further along, with drag coefficients for vehicles that were truly future-oriented. Now, boxy SUVs are driving around that nobody needs, since they are practically never driven off-road. A failure of the industry? Consumers misled by marketing? Today, the crucial issue worldwide is the electric car – completely missed by the German industry, to put it bluntly. And why the vehicles produced are even more expensive than conventional combustion engine vehicles is truly inexplicable, given that they only require about a third of the parts of a combustion engine. We still vividly remember the decline of the once-global company Olympia, which clung to its typewriters long after the first computers had arrived. They simply missed the boat! Or consider the decline of the German solar industry or the continued reliance on large-capacity gas heating systems for single-family homes, despite the existing knowledge that even 10 kW burners are too large. Instead of building smaller units, they resort to sophisticated technology to throttle their output – what madness!

Transmission in Agriculture and Industry shown in Chemnitz

Even in pre-industrial times, waterwheels, windmills, and similar structures were used to power machines, such as water pumps, mills for grinding grain, or early machinery.

Their efficiency was usually so low that, generally, only a single unit could be mounted on the drive side. For a second millstone, a second scythe hammer, or whatever else, a second drive wheel had to be built, or the first machine had to be shut down by switching gears. The transmission is therefore a historical belt drive whose design roots reach back to antiquity. It has been continuously developed and refined.

In the course of industrialization, many companies installed central steam engines, whose comparatively enormous power could be used to drive many individual machines. This led to the consolidation of production in factory halls. A key element here is the drive belt (transmission belt) like to be seen in Chemnitz Museum.

Steel shafts and cast-iron pulleys, connected by flat belts—the transmission belts made of leather, textile, or steel—were used to transmit centrally generated power.

The transmission shafts were preferably designed as a single shaft running along the factory ceiling, through the entire hall, sometimes even into other buildings or floors.

At the points where a machine was to be driven, a flat belt was led down to that machine via a pulley. Such a model concept is perfectly presented and fully functional in the hall of the Chemnitz Museum of Technology. A maintenance technician answers questions and operates the various powered "machines" in turn.

Highly recommended and by no means outdated technology!

Transmission via the legendary Deutz in the field

This principle also applied in agriculture, where the drive of a tractor with a belt pulley was used in the field to power implements. Many tractors—like the original Lanz Bulldog—were equipped with a clutch able belt pulley until the 1950s and 1960s.

In stationary operation, this pulley could be used to drive a variety of auxiliary equipment (such as large mills, threshing machines, winnowing machines, balers, hay and crop conveyors, forage harvesters, stone crushers, (firewood) circular saws, log splitters, water pumps, workshop machines, etc.).

Thus, these tractors combined the advantages of an agricultural and towing vehicle and a stationary drive engine for operating additional equipment and were still used in agriculture in some cases into the 1970s, and occasionally even longer, until they were increasingly replaced by more modern, powerful and compact machines with their own drive, after electric drives with sufficient power or smaller combustion engines became increasingly affordable.

Today, the clear global trend is towards electric motors, if only for environmental reasons and to reduce the CO2 burden on our atmosphere. Here in Germany, however, there is little determination, courage, or commitment. Is this due to the existing shortcomings in engineering (other countries once looked enviously at our education system), or is it rather a systemic issue, where some shareholders prefer to pocket their profits instead of investing in the future of their industry? Have we degenerated into a nation of shareholders, where money is only made with money?

There are flaws in our economic system, but hardly anyone is willing to truly rethink them. Who actually needs economic growth when far more is already being produced than is actually needed? For the trash? Sure, there are numerous so-called start-ups, but can they alone pull the cart out of the mud? We recently watched a report on electricity feed-in in the Netherlands with astonishment, where the reporter spoke with great admiration about electricity meters simply running backwards! Thus, the same price applied for both electricity consumption and electricity supply! Dear readers, this was once the case in Germany as well!

Transmission can have a variety of meanings, not just in physics. It also simply means "transfer," as in English: transfer, communication, transcription, or broadcast!

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