My latest generator

[DaveW]

My latest generator.  It will make 60 volts with ease, a lot more and I saw 85 volts, but the best I have managed is only 45 ma. current output.  I'm wondering what blades I should use with this one.  (Actually I was back up home last week helping to clean out the barn and this was one of the treasures that followed me home. They claimed this was mine, but that was so many decades ago I really don't remember it.)

[Norm]

  Yep we had one about like it back in'45 at

highschool we were awed that it would light up

a 110 volt lightbulb.

         ( :>) Norm.

[WXYZCIENCE]

An old telephone ring generator. I got one just like it. Watch out you don't get the fingers in between the pinion and gear. It hurts .
Joseph.

[dinges]

Had never seen a separate telephone ring generator before.

I've been experimenting a bit with two old phones about a month ago. I was surprized how easy it is to get them going: a 9V battery and a 100 ohm resistor is all that it takes to talk!

Then, I tried to make the bell ring. My mini-induction genny worked great for this. It needs about 50-60VAC, but only very little current (a few mA).

I'm on the lookout for some old field-phones, that have the ring generator built in. That would make a great, simple & cheap long distance (house/shed) communication tool. A 9V battery for the talking is all it needs, and the phones need just about 15mA. When the phone is on the hook no current is consumed.

Sometimes the old, simple technology is the best (he said, as he answered his cellular phone).

[Stonebrain]

Cool,

But how does it work.

Can't you take it apart for the pictures?

cheers,

stonebrain

[drdongle]

Wow a 5 bar! those were usually only used in phones that were on very long rural lines, a great find. If you need any help, phones are my "thing" I sell, install and repair phone systems and can point you to various resources.

[DaveW]

  Sorry, Stonebrain, I guess it is a generation thing. I thought everyone would know what it is and how it works.  I have to take my wife to the International Quilt Festival today, but tonight I'll take it apart and post pictures.  The questions and comments got me to thinking, it is actually such a simple design.  With the power of small Neo magnets it would be easy to make a small hand spun generator for a ringing circuit.  I would bet that with HD magnets you might generate 100 volts or so just by flipping the shaft with your fingers.  Might be a use for the thousands of feet of tiny magnet wire I have left over.  With my eyes getting old, I don't build many small custom transformers any more.

  One use I remember this thing being put to, (NOT LEGAL, don't even try this, Especially in a metal boat) was to toss a weighted wire over each side of a boat and cranking like mad, excited the fish to no end and made fishing more fun.  Do it wrong, however, and you could learn to dance the jig at a tender age, even on water.

[pepa]

espically when the fish come to the top belly up and you had to get them in the boat before anyone shows up. pepa

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Even more fun is pulsing DC.  It causes the fishs' swim muscles to twitch so they go concave on the side toward the positive pole.

Put a couple electrodes in the water, pulse them at the right rate, and nearby fish turn and swim by pure muscle reflex toward the positive pole, until they get close enough that they pass out and float to the surface.

(This is apparently why electric eels have the positive pole at the front.  They can send out pulses that force any nearby fish to swim up to their head, then stun them, for an easy meal.)

If you get things adjusted right you can force them to swim into and up a pipe into an enclosure - and then swim away from the opening any time they get near it.

Of course it's very illegal to do this to catch them.  But it is an interesting phenomenon.

[WXYZCIENCE]

Stonebrain, there is a small two pole alternator geared maybe 10 to 1 to the big gear you see on the right. On mine you have to push the handle in slightly to make the contact close. When you crank the handle the alternator really spins. Like the bicycle dynos for night lights.
Joseph.

[DaveW]

  OK, for those that wanted to see more here are the innards of this new-fangled device.  The generator has 5 U-shaped magnets that provide potential. Inside the base is a long shaft with a series of metal washers separated into four groups. Imagine the washers have a bite out of each side, leaving a gap. In this gap on each side are two coils, appear to be 30 ga. wire and about 600 turns each.  the frame provides the return path via an internal brush and the shaft provides the hot side via an insulated internal pin that contacts an external spring plate.

  The gear set provides about a 5 to 1 gear up ratio. There is noticable cogging as the metal washers pass the side plates.

  As an experiment, I placed small HD magnets on the outside of the U-shaped magnets to try to boost the magnetism. As each set was added, the cogging became more noticable.

This addition made the voltage go up at a faster rate per RPM, but the cogging was enough to make turning the shaft much harder.  I only briefly checked the current, since the 30 ga. wire is not rated for much current and I did not want to burn out a working 70 year old generator. At a glance it would make over 200 mils.  A really good spin would take the open circuit voltage over 210 volts.  As always, a compromise between flux density, coil turn count and wire gauge would have to be worked out to build a modern day replacement.

  All in all, this is still a working tool, and it is fun to see how it was done decades ago.  As a final test, I hooked it to an old dial phone, (105 volt ring, 48 volt talk circuit)and was able to ring the phone with a good spin on the crank.

[Stonebrain]

Thanks dave,

Sorry for making you bother so much.I'm just curious.

I know the principle of a generator,but every generator

is different.Thanks for the explanation and the pics.

Yea,in the old days magnets were u-shaped

that's maybe why they made the coils turn.

cheers,

stonebrain