Transmission mechanism

A transmission mechanism comprising the combination of:

• a housing;
• a pair of spaced-apart shafts having parallel turning axes wherein each shaft includes a conical portion tapering in a direction opposite to the conical portion of said other shaft;
• a selected one of said shafts being a driving shaft conical portion for forcibly urging the other of said shafts constituting a driven conical portion;
• a plurality of hemispherical recesses carried on said pair of conical portions arranged in rows around the circumferences and spaced along the length of each of said conical portions and in spaced-apart columns;
• a movable hollow carriage of C-shape configuration having open ends opposing each other in fixed spaced apart relationship separated by the close proximity of said driving and said driven conical portions;
• a plurality of spherical intermediate drive members movably retained in said hollow carriage for feeding a selective one of said drive members for transmitting rotative movement between said drive conical portion and said driven conical portion whereby relative velocity of said pair of shafts is controlled by axial movement of said carriage along said conical portions;
• said plurality of said drive members are enclosed within said carriage in a linear series so that each drive member transfers a driving force between said conical portions in a serial sequence;
• lead screw means operably connected to said carriage for selectively moving said carriage along the length of said conical portions to determine a multiplicity of "gear ratios";
• said carriage includes means for feeding said drive members to said recesses in an orderly manner including resilient clips carried at a selected one of said carriage open ends for presenting said selected one of said drive members to said conical portions' recesses which are in opposition facing each other;
• said carriage open end opposite to said open end carrying said clips adapted to receive said selected one of said drive members in response to movement of said drive members through said hollow carriage.