40. Storage building and eccentric drive wheel for group pumping.

Storage building and eccentric drive wheel for group pumping from wells. The eccentric drive wheel was used for group drive of bottom-hole pumps which pumped up crude oil from boreholes. The building was erected in approx. 1875 and it houses an original construction of power transmission from a steam engine, a combustion engine or an electric motor onto a slave wheel by means of a number of attachments and flat wide webbing or leather belts. There were cranks on the main shaft of the drive wheel which converted the rotary motion of an attachment into reciprocating motion which, by means of jerk lines, was transmitted onto a slave wheel. Further transmission jerk lines were attached to a slave wheel and they conveyed the drive onto the bottom-hole pumps. The system of slave wheels located on the oil field area provided drive for pumps on several oil wells at the same time. There is a multimedia display in the building; it demonstrates the eccentric drive wheel operation by light and sound performance. The lightshow pictures are accompanied by a lecture on the history of eccentric drive wheels throughout the ages.
(The display is available during a guided tour of the museum).