Wilde, of Manchester, England, improved the Siemens machine in 1866 by
doing that which is the feature that makes possible the huge "field
magnet" of the modern dynamo, which is not a magnet at all, strictly
speaking. He caused the current, after it had been rectified by the
commutator, to return again into coils of wire round the legs of his
field magnets, as shown in the diagram. This induced in them a new
supply of magnetism, and this of course intensified the current from the
armature. It is true he had a separate smaller magneto-electric machine,
with which he evolved a current for the coil around the legs of the
field magnet of a greatly larger machine upon which he depended for his
actual current, and that he did not know, although he was practically
doing the same thing, that if he should divert this current made by the
larger machine itself back through the coils of its field magnet, he
would not need the extra small machine at all, and would have a much
more powerful current.
[Illustration: SIMPLEST FORM OF DYNAMO]
And here arises a difference and a change of name. All generating
machines to this date had been called "_Magneto-electric_" because
they used _permanent_ steel magnets with which to generate a
current by the whirling of the bobbin which we now call an armature. The
time came, led to by the improvement of Wilde, in which those steel
permanent magnets were no longer used. Then the machine became the
"_dynamo-electric_" machine, and leaving off one word, according to
our custom, "_dynamo_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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