IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR MAKING AND BREAKING ELECTRIC CIRCUITS
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Rayner Gibson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th July 1882.
JOSEPH RAYNER GIBSON of St Paul's Road Camden Town in the County of
Middlesex "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR MAKING AND BREAKING ELECTRIC
CIRCUITS,"
"
The object of this invention is to obtain any number of pre-arranged contacts
from one starting impulse.-This I do by the use of a metal ball rolling in an
endless path by its own gravity from a higher to a lower level and touching in its
course contact surfaces, thereby completing any number of circuits corresponding
to the number of pairs of contact points over which it rolls.
The endless path along which the ball is intended to roll is composed of a fixed
curved portion and a movable portion which connects the two ends of the fixed
portion, and thereby completes the path. This path is made of non conducting
material, and inserted in it, and flush with the path, are metal contact points or
plates, which are coupled up with main wires so as to form a series of open circuits.
By the act of the ball traversing this path, the open circuits are severally closed,
and a current available for a variety of uses is passed through each circuit in turn.
The movable portion of the path is hinged, and constitutes a lever, its hinged part
representing the highest level of the path. The other end of this lever is slightly
erooked, sufficient to arrest the rolling ball, and prevent it from rolling back as the
lever is tipped with the ball upon it. When the ball has completed its course, it
will rest upon two contact plates, which are connected with two short circuit wires,
in which circuit an electro magnet is arranged for actuating a rock lever. This
rock lever, which carries an armature at its shorter limb, underlies the movable or
hinged portion of the path, and at the moment that the short circuit is closed by
the arrival of the ball at the end of its course, a current will pass through the
coils of the electro magnet, and cause it to tip the lever underlying the hinged part
of the path, raise that hinged portion, and cause it to deliver the ball to the highest
level of the fixed portion of the path.
The ball is retained in this position by a stop, the withdrawal of which by hand,
or by the intervention of electro-magnetism, will allow the ball to roll and repeat
its contact action along its inclined path. A number of instruments of this kind

page_text: may be connected together so as to increase to any desired extent the number of
contacts that may be obtained from one initial movement.
The last instrument will be so connected with the first that when its ball has run
its course, it will make by its last contact a circuit by which the retaining stop of
the first ball will be withdrawn, and thus the action of all the instruments will be
repeated in consecutive order.
To provide for the efficient action of this apparatus, I propose to enclose it in a
hermetically sealed case to protect it from damp and dust, a glass plate being
inserted in the case to permit of the inspection of the parts. This mode of obtaining
a series of contacts will be useful under a great variety of circumstances, one
example of which will suffice..
By providing at every local Fire Brigade Station an apparatus of this character
for signalling to the central station, an alarum sounded at the central station
will tell at once, by the number of beats, from which local station the signal was
given.