A dynamo motor, also known as an generator, is a device that can convert mechanical energy into an electric current.

The concept of the dynamo is often attributed to Michael Faraday, who discovered that moving a magnet around a closed electric circuit can induce an electric current to flow in it. Modern dynamos or electric generators are made of several components that are essential for their function.

Magnetic Circuit

On a modern dynamo motor, the magnetic circuit is made of several parts that include an armature core, a yoke, an air gap, and poles. An armature core is composed of sheet steel with a blanking die and thin magnetic steel laminates. These laminated sheets are either welded or bonded together to keep them from splitting apart. The poles are either steel laminates or solid steel, and they have field coils that set up the magnetic fields in the machine. The top and bottom poles are also called a pole head and a pole shoe, respectively. These poles usually fan out and are designed to smooth the flow of air on the air gap. The yoke is the casing where the completed poles are mounted, and it provides the magnetic path between the poles.

Electric Circuit

The electric circuit is made of an armature winding, a commutator, a field winding and brushes. The armature winding is made up of copper wires that are insulated from the armature core. In a dynamo motor, the armature winding receives the voltage generated by the motor. Armature windings are connected to the commutator. The commutator acts as the mechanical rectifier that converts AC voltage to DC voltage, and it's usually made of silver-bearing copper. The commutator conducts the current to an external circuit through the brushes.

Mechanical Support

The mechanical support of a dynamo motor is composed of a shaft, a frame, end bells, and bearings. In most cases, the yoke and the frame are the same, and they are usually made of steel or aluminum that encases the whole dynamo motor. The armature is placed inside the frame by using a steel shaft supported by two lubricated bearings that can either be a ball, a roller, or a sleeve type. Once the armature is placed inside the frame, both ends of the frame are enclosed using the end bells. The end bells are usually made of the same material used on frames and yokes.

------------------------------------------------------------------A dynamo (from the Greek word dynamis; meaning power), originally another name for anelectrical generator, generally means a generator that produces direct current with the use of acommutator. Dynamos were the first electrical generators capable of delivering power for industry, and the foundation upon which many other later electric-power conversion devices were based, including the electric motor, the alternating-current alternator, and the rotary converter. Today, the simpler alternator dominates large scale power generation, for efficiency, reliability and cost reasons. A dynamo has the disadvantages of a mechanical commutator. Also, converting alternating to direct current using power rectification devices (hollow state or more recently solid state) is effective and usually economic.

The word still has some regional usage as a replacement for the word generator. A small electrical generator built into the hub of a bicycle wheel to power lights is called a Hub dynamo, although these are invariably AC devices. HISTORY The first electric generator was invented by Michael Faraday in 1831, a copper disk that rotated between the poles of a magnet. This was not a dynamo because it did not use a commutator. However, Faraday's disk generated very low voltage because of its single current path through the magnetic field. Faraday and others found that higher, more useful voltages could be produced by winding multiple turns of wire into a coil. Wire windings can conveniently produce any voltage desired by changing the number of turns, so they have been a feature of all subsequent generator designs, requiring the invention of the commutator to produce direct current.

Jedlik's dynamo
In 1827, Hungarian Anyos Jedlik started experimenting with electromagnetic rotating devices which he called electromagnetic self-rotors. In the prototype of the single-pole electric starter, both the stationary and the revolving parts were electromagnetic. He formulated the concept of the dynamo about six years before Siemens and Wheatstone but did not patent it as he thought he was not the first to realize this. His dynamo used, instead of permanent magnets, two electromagnets opposite to each other to induce the [1][2] [3] magnetic field around the rotor. It was also the discovery of the principle of dynamo self-excitation.

Pixii's dynamo
The first dynamo based on Faraday's principles was built in 1832 by Hippolyte Pixii, a French instrument maker. It used a permanent magnet which was rotated by a crank. The spinning magnet was positioned so that its north and south poles passed by a piece of iron wrapped with insulated wire. Pixii found that the spinning magnet produced a pulse of current in the wire each time a pole passed the coil. However, the north and south poles of the magnet induced currents in opposite directions. To convert the alternating current to DC, Pixii invented a commutator, a split metal cylinder on the shaft, with two springy metal contacts that pressed against it.

Pacinotti dynamo
Pacinotti dynamo, 1860

These early designs had a problem: the electric current they produced consisted of a series of "spikes" or pulses of current separated by none at all, resulting in a low average power output. As with electric motors of the period, the designers did not fully realize the seriously detrimental effects of large air gaps in the magnetic circuit. Antonio Pacinotti, an Italian physics professor, solved this problem around 1860 by replacing the spinning two-pole axial coil with a multi-pole toroidal one, which he created by wrapping an iron ring with a continuous winding, connected to the commutator at many equally spaced points around the ring; the commutator being divided into many segments. This meant that some part of the coil was continually passing by the magnets, smoothing out the current.

Siemens and Wheatstone dynamo (1867)

The first practical designs for a dynamo were announced independently and simultaneously by Dr. Werner Siemens and Charles Wheatstone. On January 17, 1867, Siemens announced to the Berlin academy a "dynamo-electric machine" (first use of the term) which employed self-powering [4] electromagnetic field coils rather than permanent magnets to create the stator field. On the same day that this invention was announced to the Royal Society Charles Wheatstone read a paper describing a similar design with the difference that in the Siemens design the stator electromagnets were in series with [5] the rotor, but in Wheatstone's design they were in parallel. The use of electromagnets rather than permanent magnets greatly increases the power output of a dynamo and enabled high power generation for the first time. This invention led directly to the first major industrial uses of electricity. For example, in the 1870s Siemens used electromagnetic dynamos to power electric arc furnaces for the production of metals and other materials.

Gramme ring dynamo

Small Gramme dynamo, around 1878

How Gramme dynamo works to produce a smooth output waveform.

Main article: Gramme dynamo

Znobe Gramme reinvented Pacinotti's design in 1871 when designing the first commercial power plants, which operated in Paris in the 1870s. Another advantage of Gramme's design was a better path for the magnetic flux, by filling the space occupied by the magnetic field with heavy iron cores and minimizing the air gaps between the stationary and rotating parts. The Gramme dynamo was the first machine to generate commercial quantities of power for industry. Further improvements were made on the Gramme ring, but the basic concept of a spinning endless loop of wire remains at the heart of all modern dynamos. [edit]Brush

dynamo

Charles F. Brush assembled his first dynamo in the summer of 1876 using a horse-drawn treadmillto power it. U.S. Patent #189997 "Improvement in Magneto-Electric Machines" was issued April 24, 1877. Brush started with the basic Gramme design where the wire on the sides and interior of the ring were outside the effective zone of the field and too much heat was retained. To improve upon this design, his ring armature was shaped like a disc rather than the cylinder shape of the Gramme armature. The field electromagnets were positioned on the sides of the armature disc rather than around the circumference. There were four electromagnets, two with north pole shoes and two with south pole shoes. The like poles [6] opposed each other, one on each side of the disc armature. In 1881 one of The Brush Electric Company dynamos was reported to be; 89 inches long, 28 inches wide, and 36 inches in height, and weighs 4,800 pounds, and ran at a speed of about 700 revolutions per minute. It was believed to be the [7] largest dynamo in the world at that time. Forty arc lights were fed by it, and it required 36 horse power. [edit]Discovery

of electric motor principles

While not originally designed for the purpose, it was discovered that a dynamo can act as anelectric motor when supplied with direct current from a battery or another dynamo. At an industrial exhibition in Vienna in 1873, Gramme noticed that the shaft of his dynamo began to spin when its terminals were accidentally connected to another dynamo producing electricity. Although this wasn't the first demonstration of an electric motor, it was the first practical one. It was found that the same design features which make a dynamo efficient also make a motor efficient. The efficient Gramme design, with small magnetic air gaps and many coils of wire attached to a many-segmented commutator, also became the basis for the design of all practical DC motors. Large dynamos producing direct current were problematic in situations where two or more dynamos are working together and one has an engine running at a lower power than the other. The dynamo with the stronger engine will tend to drive the weaker as if it were a motor, against the rotation of the weaker engine. Such reverse-driving could feed back into the driving engine of a dynamo and cause a dangerous out of control reverse-spinning condition in the lower-power dynamo. It was eventually determined that when several dynamos all feed the same power source all the dynamos must be locked into synchrony using a jackshaft interconnecting all engines and rotors to counter these imbalances. [edit]Dynamo

as commutated DC generator

After the discovery of the AC Generator and that alternating current can in fact be useful for something, the word dynamo became associated exclusively with the commutated DC electric generator, while an AC electrical generator using either slip rings or rotor magnets would become known as an alternator. An AC electric motor using either slip rings or rotor magnets was referred to as a synchronous motor, and a commutated DC motor could also be called an electric motor though with the understanding that it could in principle operate as a generator.

[edit]Rotary

converter development

After dynamos and motors were found to allow easy conversion back and forth between mechanical or electrical power, they were combined in devices called rotary converters, rotating machines whose purpose was not to provide mechanical power to loads but to convert one type of electric current into another, for example DC into AC. They were multi-field single-rotor devices with two or more sets of rotating contacts (either commutators or sliprings, as required), one to provide power to one set of armature windings to turn the device, and one or more attached to other windings to produce the output current. The rotary converter can directly convert, internally, any type of electric power into any other. This includes converting between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC), three phase and single phase power, 25 Hz AC and 60 Hz AC, or many different output voltages at the same time. The size and mass of the rotor was made large so that the rotor would act as a flywheel to help smooth out any sudden surges or dropouts in the applied power. The technology of rotary converters was replaced in the early 20th century by mercury-vapor rectifiers, which were smaller, did not produce vibration and noise, and required less maintenance. The same conversion tasks are now performed by solid state power semiconductor devices. Rotary converters were still used for the West Side IRT subway in Manhattan into the late 1960s, and possibly some years later. They were powered by 25 Hz AC, and provided DC at 600 volts for the trains.