The Library of Work and Play: Electricity and Its Everyday UsesWoodhull, John F. (John Francis)
Science
The Library of Work and Play: Electricity and Its Everyday Uses
Woodhull, John F. (John Francis)
Electricity -- Juvenile literature
Of course at the last meeting of the Science Club every one wanted
to know how we ran a pipe organ by electricity. Moreover the
Electrical Show was coming on in the city, and cows were to be
milked by electricity, dishes were to be washed by electricity, rugs
and furniture were to be cleaned by electricity, and innumerable
distracting and distressing things were to take place. I told the boys
that really only two kinds of things were to be done by electricity at
the show, and if they would give me two one-hour appointments I would
furnish them with the key to the whole show. We might as well begin
to-day with the pipe organ question.
A pipe organ is operated by air. It has bellows which are simply one
form of an air pump. A boy is often employed to turn a crank which
works the bellows. Down in the basement underneath our pipe organ I
will show you how a half-horse-power electric motor takes the place of
a boy. We found a dark and dirty corner where a boy used to stand and
turn a crank every time æsthetically inclined people enjoyed an organ
recital in the room above. Science, which has not been given credit for
being _humanitarian_, put an electric motor into that dark corner and
sent the boy up stairs to hear the music. The motor _grumbled_ at the
dirt in the corner and compelled the janitor to keep it clean.
The electric motor, better than any device I know, enforces justice,
but never requires mercy, or at least rarely receives it. It comes
nearer than any other machine to paying back all that you put into it.
It is most economical when working up to its full capacity. I recommend
that you look it over carefully and after a few minutes tell me what
you have seen in it.
[Illustration: Fig. 19]
The boys said that it looked just like a dynamo. We must not forget
that it is a dynamo, but is here used as a motor by sending an electric
current through it. This fact, that a dynamo might be driven by an
electric current and serve as a mover of other machinery, was first
publicly exhibited in 1873 at the Vienna Exhibition, and by many
believed to have been discovered by accident at that exhibit. But why
does it look like a dynamo? It has a field whose magnetism is produced
by an electric current sent through coils of wire, and it has an
armature whose magnetism is likewise produced by the electric current.
If it were used as a dynamo, where would it get the electric current to
magnetize its field? From its own moving armature. Is it adapted for
direct current? Yes. It has a commutator and brushes. Is it shunt- or
series-wound? Shunt-wound, as shown by diagram in Fig. 20.
[Illustration: Fig. 20]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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