Windward, agree completely with you on the issue of gunk and debris packing into the drive wheel cog disk/'cassette'. This drive will have to be shielded/enclosed to have even a slight chance for successful operation under real-world conditions. Adding an enclosure adds weight.
Ctopher - yes, building a test assembly is a start. I will be watching to see how the team solves the technical hurdle of making this system shift reliably under load and at speed. The challenge is daunting. Especially, if no clutching or synchronizers are implemented. The drive pinion will have to move only at the right time to allow its rotating drive bearing elements to leave engagement from a given location on one cog wheel to re-engage to a correct drive pocket on another cog wheel without mechanical collision. This is going to be a dance of matching the angular speeds of two systems that must momentarily become disconnected during a shift event. By definition, the cog wheels' pitch has to be at minimum the width of the pinion drive bearing face width plus some clearance gap on either side otherwise the positioning of drive pinion would have to be absolutely perfect to prevent partially engaging adjacent cog wheels. The cog wheels each are fixed number of "teeth" and the drive pinion has a fixed number of drive "bearings" so the shift points will almost certainly be only at predetermined shift channels/points. Making the transition from one cog wheel to the next in a near instantaneous manner during a shift will be tough. Unlike a chain and sprocket transmission where the chain transitions from one sprocket to next with power slightly shared between the sprockets during a shift, the Ceramicspeed assembly must make a complete jump from cog wheel to cog wheel. With power applied to the driveshaft, at the moment of disconnect from one cog wheel the resistive force on the drive pinion will go to zero, the drive shaft will spin up (the rider is still hammering on the pedals), only to slam into resistance when the driven pinion's next drive bearing has rotated around and hopefully is timed properly to meet with a drive pocket in the target cog wheel. I can feel the crazy leg spin that will happen as I type this! If the shift engagement does occur, this will be a slamming engagement at the pinion drive bearing and cog wheel faces. If the shift misses, the rider will have to stop pedaling to let the drive engage, then try to resume cadence and power application. Wow! Trying to shift through multiple cogs will be really ugly. I am a gearhead and I am rooting for their success - shifting this system is a major hurdle. Making the idea demo prototype has been the easier part. Often with a design the toughest 10% takes 90% of the effort!
