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Originally Posted by zudo
Why can't you have teeth but have them get thinner in a way that another tooth can be fit in at each level?
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To get two gears to mesh requires a distinct number of teeth and a consistent spacing.
You can't do that with a cone.
You can to it with a lot of different gears approximating a cone (like the rear cassette on a mountainbike), but then it's no longer CVT as you have seperate and distinct ratios.
The only ways to acheive CVT are:
Belts.
Cones with a drive donut fed between them.
Hydraulics.
Electrics.
Rollers and ramps. The Nuvinci hub is a variation on that theme.
It should be noted that all of these devices were "invented" hundreds of years ago, it has taken this long for metallurgy and materials science to create the materials to let them survive and computers to be able to control them.
For example, commonrail diesel engines were one of the first injection methods tried, but they didn't have the valve or computer technology to make it work reliably.