IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DIVIDING AND DISTRIBUTING CURRENTS OF ELECTRICITY
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Alfred Bell at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 31st October 1878.
THOMAS ALFRED BELL, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Analytical
Chemist. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DIVIDING AND DISTRIBUTING CURRENTS
OF ELECTRICITY."
My Invention consists of the improvements herein-after described in apparatus
for dividing and distributing currents of electricity, and is specially applicable to
the division and distribution of such currents when used for the purpose of the
electric light.
The principle of my Invention consists in dividing a continuous or alternating
current of electricity into a number of intermittent currents passing along or through
different conductors, the intermittent currents succeeding one another so rapidly
that the effect produced shall be similar to that of a more feebie continuous
current.
According to my Invention I mount a wheel on an axis capable of rotation in
bearings in standards, which axis is electrically connected with a magneto-electric
machine or other source of electricity so as to receive the current of electricity
therefrom, which current is led to an electrical contact maker or conductor, or several
such contact makers or conductors, fixed on or near the periphery of the said wheel,
the said wheel or all portions of it but the conductor or conductors being formed of
or covered with a non-conducting substance. I mount around the said wheel a
frame, in which are inserted contact makers or conductors communicating with
connecting wires equal in number to the number of currents required, one end of
each wire being furnished with a contact maker so arranged relatively to the said
wheel that as it rotates the contact makers of the wires shall make electrical
contact with the contact maker or contact makers on the wheel, the other end of
each wire being led to the point where the current is to be used. The current is
theuce conveyed back to the magneto-electric machine or other source of electricity.
The aforesaid wheel, which I term a distributor, is caused to rotate, and as it rotates
its contact maker or contact makers makes or make contact successively with the
contact makers at the ends of the wires aforesaid, and thus transmits or transmit
.

page_text: the electric current to the spot where it is required. Thus, if the wheel be provided
with one contact maker-and-be-caused_to_rotate at a speed (say) of 1000 revolu-
tions a minute, the said contact maker will pass the electric current 1000-times-a-
minute through each wire.
-Instead of arranging the wires and their contact makers in the frame so that
they may be acted on by the contact maker-or-contact-makers_on_the rotary_wheel,
-the-said. wires may be electrically connected to strips of metal or to spring pistons
secured to the inner side of the said frame; or working-through the said frame and
projecting from its inner side or any other arrangement by which contact can
be made between-the-contact_maker_or contact makers on the wheel, and the said
wires can be used. And instead of arranging the said contact maker or contact
makers on the periphery of a 'wheel, as herein-before described, so that they may
act on the contact makers of the wires or on strips of metal, or on spring pistons
affixed to or projecting from the inner side of a frame mounted around the wheel
the said contact maker or contact makers may be secured to or on the face of a
rotatory disc so arranged in conjunction with a fixed disc or ring, or slab, or plate,
through which the ends of the conducting wires pass, or on or in which the
strips of metal or spring pistons electrically connected to the said wires are
mounted, that on the wheel or rotatory disc being caused to rotate, the contact maker
or contact makers thereon may be successively brought into contact with the ends
of the wires or with the strips of metal or spring pistons or other contact makers as
in the arrangement herein first described.
In some cases instead of using an independent or detached distributor I effect
the division of the electric current by modifying the revolving commutator of the
"Gramme" or other magneto-electric machine used, which commutator will when
the connections of the wires leading from it are altered, and other slight modifica-
tions are made on the principle herein-before described, act in essentially the same
way as my distributor.