IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH PRINTING APPARATUS OR MARKING INSTRUMENTS
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Banks at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 18th June
1861.
I, JAMES BANKS, of Salisbury Street, Adelphi, Electric Engineer, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRO-MAGNETIC
TELEGRAPH PRINTING APPARATUS OR MARKING INSTRUMENTS," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in certain novel arrangements of electro-magnetic
apparatus, by which the needle or style used for producing certain marks,
indentations, indications, or signals in the shape of dots and lines upon ribbons
or slips of paper is made to operate direct and rapidly with the minimum of
power.
Instead of the ordinary complicated machinery or apparatus for producing
the alternate back and forward motion of the needle or style as a marker, or
an indenting or puncturing instrument in any of the machines heretofore in
use, I make the needle or style, or the marking, indicating, or puncturing
point or instrument, as one of the terminations of a soft iron core, which I
support in suitable bearing pieces or "cocks," and allow of its freely running
back and forth within an electro-magnetic coil, along the axial line thereof.
To the opposite end of the soft iron bar or core I attach a spring or other.

page_text: means of keeping the core (with its needle or instrument point) in its proper
position when the electric current ceases to pass, and also to overcome the
residual magnetism in the magnets, if any, and also the frictional resistance to
the free traverse of the core. Upon the fore or needle end of the soft core I
*fix a button or ring of soft iron, of any suitable size, to increase the action of
the armature by which the needle is repelled or thrust out from the core.
When the soft iron core or armature is caused to move out from the
hollow axis of the electro-magnetic coil, by reason of its repulsion from the
pole of the magnet, it is further aided in its motion by a permanent
magnet, which is made to act on the opposite face of the collar or ring upon
the soft iron core, and to pull or attract it with additional force in the same
direction in which the passage of the electric current passes through the coil
magnet. The permanent magnet being of an opposite polarity to that induced
in the moveable core by the action of the current, instantaneous action is
secured; and when the electric current ceases to pass through the long coil
magnet, the armature and soft metal core or rod with its needle termi-
nation is brought back to its normal position, when it is ready for another
forward motion.
Instead of employing one horizontal coil with a hollow axis and soft iron
core or armature, and depending for further aid on a permanent magnet con-
nected with the fore cock or bearing point of the armature, I prefer, for the
more rapidly acting and delicate instruments, to employ a single or a doublo
horizontally-placed coil, with hollow axis, and the soft core and needle or
marker, or its equivalent, as before; and instead of the permanent magnet, I
substitute another electro-magnetic coil or magnet, having a solid iron pole,
which is made to project sufficiently high to form a guide for the needle or
marker, and also to attract the armature, and increase the intensity of forward
action or stroke of the core and its needle marker or style. The wire forming
the coil of the horizontal magnet is connected with that of the vertical electro-
magnetic coil, so as to ensure the proper polarity of each magnet, or the
respective magnets of the combined horizontal and the vertical arrangement
for producing motion. The end of the soft iron core, to which the controulling
spring is attached, may be used or taken advantage of for the purposes of
relay" or transmitting, or for signalling.
68
For the purpose of giving motion to the long strips of paper or other
material, upon which the dots or lines, or dots and lines, are to be marked, or
the indentations or the punctures made at the proper intervals, I employ any
convenient going movement or train of wheels operated by a spring and fuzee,

page_text: or other convenient means to ensure regularity of motion in the feeding or
drawing through of the paper between gripping or friction wheels or rollers.
The paper is made to pass before the needle pointer, marker, or style, by
which it is pressed against an inked band or band of carbon paper, when the
marking of dots or lines is required, or when indentations or punctures are
required, a pad is provided, against which the paper is projected or pressed
by the instrument.