IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC LAMPS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Denton Abel at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 11th June 1879. A communication
from abroad by Hermann Sedlaczek and Franz Wiknlill, both of Leoben, in
the Austrian Empire.
CHARLES DENTON ABEL, of Southampton Buildings, in the County of Middlesex.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC LAMPS." A communication from abroad by Hermann
Sedlaczek and Franz Wiknlill, both of Leoben, in the Austrian Empire.
According to the present Invention, the two carbon electrodes of an electric lamp
are carried by two pistons, plungers, or floats contained in two closed vessels filled
with liquid in communication with each other, the relative heights of the liquid in
the vessels and the weight of the pistons and arms projecting therefrom carrying
the carbons being so proportioned that the piston carrying the upper carbon will
tend to descend in its vessel, causing the liquid to flow therefrom into the other
vessel, and thereby raising the second piston with the lower carbon. The commu-
nication between the two vessels is governed by a cock, valve or slide, so actuated
by the current passing to the carbon electrode, that when such current increases in
strength, owing to a too near approach of the carbons, it causes the cock, valve or
slide to cut off the said communication, thereby preventing the further approach of
the carbons, until by their burning away and the consequent lengthening of the
voltaic are the current becomes sufficiently decreased to allow the communication
between the two vessels to be re-established.
Various arrangements of the apparatus may be employed for carrying out this
method of regulating the feed of the carbons; thus, in one arrangement, two vertical
metal tubes filled with a liquid have plunger-pistons passing easily through stuffing
boxes in their upper ends, while at their lower ends they communicate by a pipe or
passage in which is a cock. This cock is hollow, and contains a piston slide which
is connected to the armature of an electro-magnet or solenoid, through which the
electric current passes. When the current is of normal strength, the armature and
slide are held by a spring in such a position, as to allow the two tubes to communi-
cate through a passage in the cock, but when the current increases in strength the
electro-magnet in attracting the armature and slide causes the latter to close the
passage in the cock, so as to cut off the communication. The hollow cock has
another opening by which its interior communicates with the passage leading to
the tube of the lower carbon, so that when on starting the lamp the electro-magnet
draws the piston slide outwards in the cock, the suction thus produced in the

page_text: chamber of the cock causes a portion of the liquid to be drawn into it from the
tube, whereby the piston with the lower carbon is made to descend, so as to remove
the carbon electrodes from each other sufficiently to produce the voltaic arc. The
cock also has another opening, so arranged that by turning the cock into a certain
position, a free communication is established between the two tubes, so as to allow 5
the piston with the upper carbon holder to be drawn casily upwards away from the
lower carbon holder for the introduction of fresh carbon electrodes.