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Robert Bosch (1)



Bosch products - examples
Hydraulics 1
Hydraulics 2
Spark plug
Ignition
Petrol injection 1
Petrol injection 2
Diesel injection
Line injection pump
CAN Bus
Battery


Like so many inventors in the motor vehicle area, Robert Bosch also comes from Swabia. At the time of his birth in 1861, Germany was, at that time, not yet a state. He came from a middle-class family as the eighth of twelve children. His family ran an inn with a livery barn. He was said to have had an 'upright' youth with little room for emotions. Different from many of his inventor colleagues, the young Robert hardly ever came into contact with qualified technology. It was more the rural idyll and probably the thriftiness that left it's mark on him.

His schooling never gave any indication of his later technical talent or his career either. Indeed, the family did move to the city of Ulm where Bosch had the opportunity to go to a scondary school. He finished his education with low marks in maths and, with what we would today call a 'GCSE'. Finally, in the midst of his many divergent interests, he decided to go into precision mechanics.

Apparently, he never took much from his apprenticeship in the construction of mostly electric aparatus. What seemed to be far more important, were the following journeyman's travelling years, which were typical at the time. Of course, these years were not pleasure trips but hard work under the conditions prevailing in the respective countries.

Right now it would be going too far, to list all the fields in which the young man extended his knowledge and abilities, in the beginning in Germany and later also in the USA, where by the way, he got to know Thomas Alva Edison and also in Great Britain. In 1885, at the age of 24 he returned back home, got married and was, for a short time an employee, however, one year later he founded his company in Stuttgart.

Now, one should not imagine that this was particularly romantic. It was not that he bought up an enormous amount of workshop equipment and then went out looking for customers, it was rather the other way around. The beginnings, like his apprenticeship and travelling years, had hardly anything to do with motor vehicle engines. Bosch was rather modest and invested carefully. Indeed, in this case, the precision mechanics were applied more to electric components.

At this point we won't go into detail about the very difficult starting years where he repaired stationary equipment, we'll rather concentrate on his beginnings in the motor vehicle technology. This was all about the battery-buzzer- or the glow-pipe ignition, where in a separate chamber, there is an open flame during the whole operation, which heats a pipe, which in turn, more or less by chance, ignites the fuel-air mixture when a flap to the combustion chamber is opened.

The electric ignition originates, like so much from the beginning of engine-technology, from the Deutz Company in Cologne. Due to the fact that this low-voltage magneto ignition was not patented, Bosch could lay on a very small series, indeed, only suitable for the relatively low RPMs of the stationary engines. However, the pressure on him to offer this ignition for motor vehicles was increasing more and more.

There is no record of how many vehicles went up in flames through slightly careless handling of the glow-pipe heating. Just imagine if this type of ignition would be used in an airship with a hydrogen filling. Neither was the battery-buzzer ignition a big hit. After all, the batteries were still rather susceptible to break-downs and also generators did not yet exist. Thus, one could only travel as long as the battery was charged, almost like in an electric car. 02/10






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