relieved and the molecules of both the iron and the wire wound about it
return to normal, and in the act of returning we have a dynamic or
moving condition, resulting in a current, only in the opposite
direction. (See Chap. VI.)
Now mount the permanent magnet in a frame and mount the soft iron with
the wire on it (which in this shape is an electromagnet) on a revolving
arm and so set it on the arm that its ends will come close to, but not
touch, the poles of the permanent magnet. Now revolve the arm, and every
time the electromagnet or keeper approaches the permanent magnet a
current of one polarity will be momentarily developed in the wire of the
electromagnet, which is moving. When it is opposite the poles, it has
reached the maximum charge and, now, as it passes on it discharges and a
current of the opposite polarity is developed in the wire. The more
rapidly we revolve the arm the more voltage (electrical pressure) the
current it develops will have.
It will be plain to all that we might make the electromagnet stationary
and revolve the permanent magnet and get the same result. If the
permanent magnet were strong enough and the electromagnet the right size
as to iron, windings, etc., and we revolve the arm with sufficient
rapidity, we could get an alternating current of electricity that would
produce an electric light. I have not and cannot here give you the
construction of a modern alternating-current dynamo. I have simply
described the simplest form of dynamo, and all of them operate upon the
fundamental principle of a permanent magnetic field and an
electromagnet, moving in a certain relation to each other. The field
may revolve or the electromagnet may revolve, whichever is the most
convenient to construct. The field-magnet may be a permanent magnet or
an electromagnet, made permanent during the operation of the dynamo by a
part of the current generated by the machine being directed through a
coil surrounding soft iron; or the field-current may come from an
outside source. This is the kind of field-magnet universally used for
dynamo work, as a much stronger magnetism is developed in this way than
it is possible to obtain from any system of permanent steel magnets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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