| ▲ | chabska 2 hours ago | |
To deliver very high torque, the clutch plates needs to be pressed very hard together to generate enough friction. This also means that it take a lot of force to pull them apart, if you use a simple lever, as older machines do. Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering. | ||
| ▲ | sandworm101 an hour ago | parent [-] | |
That, and design tolerances. A fancy clutch can be light and strong (think ferarri) but farm machines need to work in the dirt/rust and so need larger tolerances. So heavier springs and bigger .... Bigger everything. A slipping clutch in a Ferrari is annoying. A slipping clutch on a tractor means a missed harvest. | ||