IMPROVEMENTS IN MAGNETO OR DYNAMO-MAGNETO ELECTRIC MACHINES."
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Richard Paget Higgs at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd October 1878.
RICHARD PAGET HIGGS, of No. 136, Gresham House, in the City of London,
Civil Engineer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN MAGNETO OR DYNAMO-MAGNETO ELECTRIC
MACHINES."
con-
The object of my Invention is to obtain electrical currents of great power suitable
to the electrical deposition of metals from solutions of the same, or to the purposes
of electric lighting and heating, or to the electrical transmission of power.
struct magneto or dynamo-magneto electric machines in which I avail inyself of the
following natural laws and their converse: It is known that when an electric
current passes along a conductor, a magnetic pole of one naine presented to the con-
ductor and free to move as deflected in a definite direction, and a magnetic pole of
opposite name is deflected in an opposite direction. When the magnet pole is
caused to move by the application of power thereto in relation to a conductor in a
direction opposite to that in which it would be deflected by the current there is
induced in the conductor a corresponding electrical current. Whilst the movement
of the magnet is constant in direction and intensity the current is constant also in
direction and intensity, and any second conductor applied at two or more points of
the first conductor will be traversed by a current of electricity of constant direction.
Or the magnets may be fixed and the conductor caused to revolve on its own axis,
when from the two bearings or supports in which it turns the electric current may
be taken, the positive pole being at one end or bearing and the negative pole of
this electric current at the other bearing. To suit these conditions I employ either
a machine in which the conductor and magnet are caused to rotate together as a
solid body, instead of, as heretofore, the magnets remaining fixed and the conductor
caused to rotate, or I employ the usual principle of construction of machine and
cause the conductor to rotate in a magnetic field derived from fixed magnets or
electro-magnets. It is to be noted as a special feature of my Invention that to one
conductor only magnetic poles of the same name are presented, so that there does
not occur any interversion of magnetism, and it is in this manner that I prefer to

page_text: use the machines, although the second form of machine can by suitably connecting
its conducting wires be made to act as an interversion machine, either wholly or in
part, so that one part of the machine may yield currents of constant direction and
another part rapidly inverted currents, or the machine may yield wholly constant or
wholly inverted currents, and in all cases without the use of commutators or sub-
divided collectors of the electric current. As magnets have two poles I prefer to
present the pole of opposite name to another conductor.
In all that precedes or is subsequent herein the term exciting magnet is used to
include either perinanent magnets, separately excited clectro-magnets, or electro-
magnets excited by the currents produced in the machine on the principle of mutual
accumulation as invented by Wheatstone.
In the machine in which the conductor and exciting magnet rotate together as a
single whole revolving body I prefer to wind a bar or axis of iron as an ordinary
straight electro-magnet set in bearings so as to revolve on its longitudinal axis, and I
then wind longitudinally upon this electro-magnet a conductor or conductors, or I
encase the electro-magnet in a copper tube which serves as a conductor.
I place
connecting springs at the ends and middle of this conductor from which I convey the
current induced.
In the machine of which the exciting magnets are fixed I prefer to wind bar
electro-magnets, which I curve to form a periphery of a wheel. This wheel I
mount upon au axis or axle and cause it to rotate in the end of a cylinder formed
by iron bars, which constitute the coils of electro-magnets. I prefer, although I do
not limit myself to the use of, six electro-magnets on the wheel and six exciting
magnets surrounding the periphery of the wheel. At the other end of the cylinder
where the magnet poles are of the other name I place on the same axis or axle
another wheel.
By cross connections, in a manner well-known to electricians,, each alternate
member of the series of exciting electro-magnets can be of reversed polarity, causing
currents of intervention to be generated as may be desired. Under this condition
the currents, due to increased and decreased strengths of magnetism, are superposed
in proper directions upon the currents arising from the simple cutting of the mag-
netic lines of force, but under this condition the coils become heated, which is
prevented by the use of the machine in the manner preferred, that is, with one
end of the cylinder of exciting magnets presenting poles of the same name.