IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC LAMPS OR REGULATORS
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Sabine at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 27th November 1878.
ROBERT SABINE, of Grosmont House, Hampton Wick, in the County of Mid-
dlesex, Civil Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC LAMPS OR REGULATORS."
My Invention relates to the lamps or regulators used in connection with electric
or magneto-electric lighting, and consists of various improvements in the means
of automatically regulating the distance between the incandescent electrodes
employed, whereby the said apparatus is rendered more efficient and reliable than
heretofore, as will appear by the following description:
:-
My first improvement consists in employing the heated air in the neighbourhood
of the electric arc as it ascends to set in motion a fan or rotating set of vanes
something like those of a sinoke-jack. The rotation thus imparted to the fan or
vanes is communicated through a suitable mechanism of wheels and pinions or
endless screws to the electrode-holders. In this way the approach of the electrodes
is actuated directly by their own combustion, so that any increase or decrease in
their combustion causes at the same time a corresponding increase or decrease of
the rate of their approach to each other.
My second improvement is specially applicable when the light is thrown upwards
from the lamp or regulator for the illumination of a top-reflector or a ceiling. It
consists in the suppression of one of the carbons as usually employed in a regulator
or lamp, and in the substitution in lieu thereof of a heavy stationary and suitably
insulated block of conducting and fusible material (for instance, cast iron). When
the electric arc is formed a portion of the material in question is fused, and remains
underneath the arc in the form of a small pond of molten material, which is
intensely luminous. The fluidity of this molten portion tends to cause it to main-
tain a constant level, and so to be free from the formation of a cavity or an
irregularity, which in one of the carbon electrodes frequently prevents that portion
of the electrode which is at the highest point of incandescence being visible. The
flat surface of the electrode so formed tends to moderate the influx of atmospheric
air to the neighbourhood of the arc, which becomes enveloped in a flame of incan-

page_text: descent carbon gas, thereby preventing the oxygen of the air reaching the molten
portion of the electrode, and so protects it from the destructive oxidation, and in
the case of cast iron, of the sparkling which would otherwise ensue.
My third improvement in regulating the distance between the carbon electrodes
of a regulator or lamp consists in taking advantage of the well known fact that
parallel conductors attract or repel each other according as the currents in them go
For this purpose
in the same or in opposite directions.
place the carbons
vertically side by side, one of them being fixed, and the other balanced over a
fulcrum or centre. The frames carrying the two carbons form portions of the
common electric circuit in such a way that when the current circulates the parallel
portions of the balanced frame (which carries the moveable carbon) are deflected
and the carbons separated. The degree of deflection of the frame depending upon
the current it follows that should from any cause the electromotive force in the
circuit increase the, frame is thereby deflected more, and the electric arc is corre-
spondingly increased in length, which reduces the current again, and maintains the
light more steadily than when the carbons are placed immoveably side by side
without any such adjustinent.