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
The 110-volt current can push an ampere of electricity through eight
inches of carbon thread seven thousandths of an inch in diameter, and
when this happens the filament gets hot enough to give out as much
light as sixteen standard candles. In the place of the 16-candle-power
lamp, we put a 32-candle-power 110-volt lamp. The ammeter indicated
one ampere. The carbon filament was larger (No. 30, diameter =
.01 inch), so as to allow more current to pass. An 8-candle-power
110-volt lamp was substituted; one quarter of an ampere passed. A
4-candle-power 110-volt lamp was used; one eighth of an ampere passed.
A 100-candle-power 110-volt lamp was substituted; three amperes of
current passed through it. In all these cases the lamps which passed
the larger current had the larger filaments. A little practice would
enable one to distinguish between these lamps without labels by
examining their filaments. Among these 110-volt lamps, it is to be
noted that the amount of light which they give is proportional to the
amount of current which they pass. And it is convenient to remember
that one ampere of electricity for one hour costs about one cent.
We introduced into the socket a "Hylo" lamp (Fig. 96). The filament,
_A_, took half an ampere of electricity, gave 16-candle-power of
light, and cost half a cent an hour. When the lamp was turned in its
socket the current was switched off of the filament _A_, and on to the
filament _a_. This took .03 of an ampere, gave one candle-power of
light, and cost .03 of a cent an hour, or at the rate of about $3.00 a
year, burning continuously day and night.
[Illustration: Fig. 96]
The uses of such a lamp are apparent in rooms which have no daylight.
However, a wall switch at the entrance of such a room, making it easy
to throw on and off the light entirely, seems to be a more satisfactory
arrangement. One of the boys connected a wattmeter in the circuit with
a hylo lamp and found that the small filament did not pass current
enough to move the armature of the wattmeter. Hence that may be burned
alone without affecting the consumer's bills.
We took a 16-candle-power 220-volt lamp, and lighted it by a 220-volt
current. The meter showed that it allowed only one quarter of an ampere
to pass. The filament was very much smaller than that in the 110-volt,
16-candle-power lamp. The pressure was twice as great as before, but
the resistance was four times as great, and hence only half as much
current passed. We find that it costs just as much to generate one
quarter of an ampere at 220-volt pressure as it does to generate half
an ampere at 110-volt pressure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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