GB241965A - Improvements in automobile vehicles - Google Patents

Abstract

241,965. Lanchester, F. W. May 2, 1924. Exciting; pole-pieces, cores, yokes, and carcass structures.-A machine having field magnets upon which series and shunt exciting coils are spaced widely apart and in which the intervening spaces permit or promote magnetic leakage, is combined with a petrol or other engine driving a vehicle so as to start the same in either direction and to assist the engine or charge a battery during forward running. The shunt and series windings are opposed whilst charging, the magnetic leakage limiting the current produced. The machine is series excited for starting but is additively compounded when assisting the engine. Preferably the drive is direct and an independent battery charging set of small capacity may be installed. A magnetic or dog clutch may be used so that the engine may be run independently of the car for inspection, test or battery charging. Fig. 1 shows the fly-wheel of an internal-combustion engine 1 constructed as a Gramme ring A<1>, its windings being connected by truly radial connectors to a commutator 3. The field magnet cores B<1> are mounted one on each side and carry shunt coils B<3> and series coils B<2> arranged as shown, the portions of the cores between the coils being bolted to extensions of the base chamber of the engine 1 and being shaped according to the degree of magnetic leakage desired. A portion of the shunt field flux may be shortcircuited by an iron bar or a by-pass external to the winding. The brushes in the four-pole machine described are arranged as in Fig. 2, the pairs lying between the magnet cores being connected together to short-circuit the subtended idle portion of the armature and reduce the total resistance. A six-pole machine similarly constructed and another with a ring field core and six salient poles are illustrated in the Specification. Carbon brushes are employed or a combination or carbon and high conductivity compositions or copper brushes. A controller having four positions, viz. : " reverse," " ahead," " charge " and " off " is shown diagrammatically in Figs. 6, 7, and 8, which respectively illustrate the first three steps.