IMPROVEMENTS IN METHODS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING LIGHT, HEAT, OR MOTIVE POWER BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edmund Edwards and Alphonse
Normandy at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th November
1878.
EDMUND EDWARDS, of 40, Southampton Buildings, in the County of Middlesex,
Engineer, and ALPHONSE NORMANDY, of Victoria Docks, in the County of Essex.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN METHODS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING LIGHT, HEAT,
OR MOTIVE POWER BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY."
This Invention has for its objects improvements in the production of electric
light, by which improvements a current of electricity obtained by steam or other
power through magneto-electric machines or other apparatus may be made to
produce one, two, or as many electric lights as may be required, and in any desired
positions or localities, and such separate electric lights may each be produced,
extinguished, and regulated without difficulty.
We take one or more magneto-electric machines of any of the well known kinds
ordinarily constructed and used, situated in any convenient central position in
relation to the lights which are to be produced. We drive this machine by steam
or other convenient power, so that a very rapidly intermittent current of electricity
of any desired magnitude is produced from it, and is conveyed along a metallic wire
properly insulated in the usual way, which passes through or near every station or
position where it is desired that a light shall be produced.
The circuit of the current is completed either by bringing the wire back to the
machine at the generating station, or connecting it in the usual way to the
earth.
At or near every point where it is required that a light shall be produced we
arrange a coil (or series of coils) of insulated metallic wire or ribbon (preferably
surrounding a bar or wires of soft iron), through which coil or coils the current
from the principal wire first described can be passed when desired, or cut off by
means of a key or lever. Round or adjacent to each coil of insulated wire described
we form one or more secondary coils of insulated metallic wire or ribbon, arranged so
that the passage of the rapidly intermittent current of electricity, as described, through
the primary coil or coils generates a corresponding current of electricity in each of

page_text: the secondary coils. We collect the electricity so generated and pass it through
carbon points, plates of metal, or other material capable of incandescence by the
passage of electricity through it, or other apparatus as ordinarily used for the pro-
duction of light from electricity.
We sometimes arrange the apparatus so that the intermittent current of electricity
produced as above described has its direction reversed between each wave of electricity
produced.
A sufficiently powerful galvanic battery may be used instead of the machine
driven by power, as first described.
The currents of electricity obtained when desired from the secondary coils of
insulated wire may be used for the purpose of obtaining heat by means of plates
of metal or other material heated by the passage of the electricity through them, or
by other well known means.
Or the said currents may be applied to the production of motive power by means
of electro-magnetic machinery, or apparatus of any of the well known kinds
ordinarily used; or the currents may be used for the purpose of electro-plating or
other chemical decomposition, or for telegraphing.
The currents of electricity from two or more of the secondary coils described may
be collected together, and may be used for any of the purposes already described.
In order to facilitate the production of the induced clectricity and to diminish
the resistance to the passage of the first current of electricity through the coil or
coils as before described, we prefer to make such coil or coils of a number of insulated
wires or ribbons made up into a bundle or rope, which may be rolled up into a coil
or spiral, and unite all the wires at each end of the coiled bundle or rope into
metallic contact with each other, which ends are then joined on to the first con-
ductor, so that the electricity may pass simultaneously through all the wires or
ribbons.
In order to facilitate the production of the induced electricity, and to diminish its
intensity and increase its quantity, we prefer making the coil or coils in which the
electricity is induced of a number of insulated wires or ribbons made up into a
bundle or rope, the ends of the wires or ribbons at each end of the bundle or rope
being in metallic contact with each other, which united ends are then joined to the
conductor conveying the induced electricity.
Sometimes also we only unite the ends of wires or ribbons forming the compound
rope into groups of a few each instead of uniting all the ends into one group.
The current from the secondary coil or coils may itself be used for generating
further supplies of electricity in the same way as that already first described, it being
then only necessary to carry the primary current generated by the machine to the
first station.
We sometimes produce light by decomposing water by means of a current of
electricity produced as above described, or by other means, and directing an ignited
jet of the gases thus obtained against a cylinder or block of lime or other material
capable of becoming brightly incandescent under intense heat.
Where currents of electricity produced in the way described or in other ways are
used for the purpose of producing light we use carbon points or poles in the usual
way, preferably enclosed in a hollow sphere or vessel of glass from which the air is
exhausted, or which is filled with gas, vapour, or fluid which will not combine with
the carbon.
Instead of passing the primary current of electricity through a coil or coils of wire
or ribbon, and inducing electricity in other coils of wire or ribbon, as before described,
we sometimes use metallic sheets or plates suitably insulated and arranged in lieu
of the said coil or coils of wire or ribbon.
By making the coil or coils, sheets or plates, for passing the primary current of
electricity, and for inducing other currents of electricity of suitable size, they may be
made to serve to measure the quantity of induced electricity obtained from or by
the primary current, such quantity being dependent on the proportions of the said
coil or coils, shoots or plates.

page_text: The primary current, after it has served to induce electricity, as before described,
may then be used to work or assist other machinery or apparatus for generating
electricity, or it may be used to assist the machinery by which it is itself produced.
The induced currents of electricity may be regulated and stopped by a suitable
arrangement to control or interrupt the flow thereof, the primary current still con-
tinuing to flow through the coil or coils, sheets or plates, which served to induce
other currents, as before described, so that the effect produced by the induced currents
may be regulated or stopped at the most convenient points.
If, for example, the induced currents are employed to produce light the primary
and the inducing coils, sheets, or plates may be placed in the basement, or under
the roadway, and the induced currents therefrom led by suitable conductors to
various parts of a building to produce light which may be regulated or stopped at
these points.