IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS AND APPLIANCES OR APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING AND REPRODUCING THE INDICATIONS OR RECORDS OF THE SPEED OF MOVING BODIES
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Emil Bennett at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 24th December 1878.
JOHN EMIL BENNETT, of Sheffield, in the West Riding of the County of York.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS AND APPLIANCES OR APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING
AND REPRODUCING THE INDICATIONS OR RECORDS OF THE SPEED OF MOVING
BODIES."
This Invention relates to improvements in the means and appliances or apparatus
for obtaining and reproducing the indications or records of the speed of moving
bodies.
The object of this Invention is to obtain the records or indications of the speed of
moving bodies at a distance from the said moving body, or when the indications
and records are taken at or near the said moving body to reproduce the said
indications or records at one or more places at a distance; tho principle of the
Invention being to cause the moving body, the speed of which it is desired to
indicate, to complete and destroy automatically the circuit of electricity, which is
the agent employed to give motion to the apparatus which indicates, or reproduces,
the indications at one or more places at a distance from the said moving body.
This Invention can be carried into effect by the following arrangement of
apparatus or appliances, that is to say :-
To the shaft of the revolving body is attached, or connected, directly or indirectly,
a lever or rod which has a rotatory motion, and is arranged to dip into a bath of
mercury during a part only of its rotation; the bath and mercury are in electrical
connection with a galvanic battery or other source of electricity, and the battery is
further in electrical connection with an electro-magnet which is again in electrical
connection with the shaft of the revolving body, the above described apparatus
being so constructed and arranged that the revolving shaft, the speed of which it is
desired to indicate, the bath and mercury, galvanic battery, and electro-magnet, can
all be in electrical connection with one another; but the electrical connection will
only be established when the lever or rod on or connected with the shaft of the
revolving body is travelling through the mercury in the bath as above specified, so
that the electrical connection is intermittent and not regular, and the electrical
Pin d

page_text: current acting on the électro-magnet will thereby be intermittent and not regular.
In connection with the electro-magnet is an armature, which will be attracted to it
when the electrical circuit is complete as aforesaid, and which will be drawn away
from the electro-magnet by a spring when the electrical circuit is not complete.
This armature will be connected with an ordinary engine counter, either directly
or indirectly, or it will be connected with any ordinary apparatus for indicating the
speed of moving bodies.
By the arrangement of apparatus above described the indications and records of
moving bodies can be obtained at any distance from the said moving body, by
connecting the above described apparatus or appliances by electric wires with a
galvanic battery.
Instead of the intermittent action of the electric current being derived from the
bath and rotating rod as above described, the following appliances could be
substituted for completing and destroying the electric circuit, that is to say:-
Connected with the revolving shaft aforesaid, directly or indirectly, is a circular
disc which has through its centre, and terminating at the circumference, a rod or
layer of any metal which is a good conductor of electricity, the remainder of the
circular disc being composed of wood or some other non conductor of electricity;
this disc rotates on or is rotated by the revolving shaft aforesaid, and when the
rod or layer of metal in the said disc is in a horizontal position, it will touch and
be in communication with two fixed horizontal rods of metal connected with the
appliances or apparatus firstly described, and thus the electrical circuit will be.
complete, but when the rod or layer of metal in the disc is not in a horizontal
position and does-not-touch-the horizontal-rods of metal at the periphery_of_the
said disc, the electrical circuit will be destroyed.
To obtain the reproductions of indications or records, a revolving spindle or
rotating arm forming a part of or connected with an ordinary indicating apparatus
will be connected with the galvanic battery, electro-magnet, and another indicating
apparatus, by which the indications of the first apparatus will be reproduced in the
way that the indications and records are obtained as hereinbefore specified.