The Background Of The wiper blade And How It Came To Reign The World.

The model of replacement wiper blades we currently notice today are all retrograded from the build patented in 1903 by a Mrs Mary Anderson, of Birmingham, Alabama, United States. By comparison to today’s high tech wipers these were extremely coarse. The basic apparatus consisted of a hand crank which was operated by the driver from inside the cab. Mary Anderson was inspired to create the first wipers on a trip to New York City where she noticed the tram drivers cleansing their wind screens by hand. Once the basic wiper blades model was produced it was left to other means to actuate the wiper blades arm across the wind screen. The first development in this area was the vacuum system which directed force through what is called a vacuum pump. This device utilised the difference in air pressure underlying the inside and the outside of the intake manifold to produce a vacuum force.

This augmentation was thanks to the advent of the industrial revolution when Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company and initiated a action of generating millions of auto mobiles with wipers fixed as standard. The internal combustion engine was in many ways the catalyst which propelled the wind screen wiper into its present standing in society. Today replacement wiper blades are truly ubiquitous found on every type of vehicle imaginable from the common car, to aeroplanes, helicopters, boats and even hover craft. The problem with this set up back then was the speed of the wiper blades was driven by the extent of force produced from the vacuum. So at high speeds this was contrarily proportional and the replacement wiper blades came to a complete stop, unlike today’s modern electrically driven varieties. When the engine was started the wipers would go at an incredible rate but when the engine was compromised going up a hill they would all but stop. This system has since been antiquated by the superior electric replacement wiper blades thanks to the invention of the battery where energy can be stored and dispensed at will.

By the mid nineteen sixties the vacuum powered replacement wiper blades was all but bygone and electric wipers were attached as standard. Today the modern electric replacement wiper blades has many variable functional settings, these include a branch of speed settings to suit the prevailing weather conditions and intermittent speed settings for when it is only spitting. Another innovation is the rain sensing system developed by Citroen of France in the nineteen seventies and fitted to its Maserati. This arrangement didn’t sense the rain directly but instead measured the amount of resistance found when wiping the windscreen, more resistance indicated less rain water therefore the battery produced less power. When it rained the wiper blades would encounter less resistance and so the wiper blades would go at a faster rate for that cause. The wiper blades has to be by the driver turned on and off as well prior to use. Today’s rain sensing technology is better; it will turn on the wipers itself and will adjust the speed of the wipers by directly sensing the level of rain fall.