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Performance of a dynamo-battery system, generator cut-in speeds, and the use of compound versus shunt windings.


Identifier  ExFiles\Box 57\1\  Scan052
Date  9th December 1930
  
X5780

EFC. {E. Fowler Clarke - Electrical Engineer} from PN. {Mr Northey}
c. R. {Sir Henry Royce} Sg. {Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} E. {Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer}
c. Mx. {John H Maddocks - Chief Proving Officer} Wor. {Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager}
c. Da. {Bernard Day - Chassis Design} Ev. {Ivan Evernden - coachwork}
c. Hd. {Mr Hayward / Mr Huddy} EP. {G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer}

PN {Mr Northey} 20/GDL9.12.30.

X.8780
X.5780. PERFORMANCE OF DYNAMO-BATTERY SYSTEM X.3374.

Referring to your EFC {E. Fowler Clarke - Electrical Engineer} 2/AD9.12.30 and your EFC {E. Fowler Clarke - Electrical Engineer} 1/AD12.12.30.

Am I right in assuming that the switching proposition you have proposed in the latter memo will enable the generator to cut-in at 15 or 16 m.p.h. if desired?

I have in the past, more than once, wondered why we did not make use of a compound winding instead of a pure shunt machine. The suggestion made by R. {Sir Henry Royce} recently to include the head lamps in a series winding appears to me very valuable, and I am anxious to hear what may have proceeded on these lines in view of this proposal.

I get the impression in your first memo that in places you wrap up in unnecessary mystery the behaviour of a shunt wound generator in conditions of service on one of our cars; in other words, a dynamo having to do its work through a wide variation of speeds. One would think from your memo that the output of a generator must increase merely as a result of being coupled to a number of cells across which the P.D. is capable of rising. You do not point out that thisphenomenon is only found as a result of the speed of the generator being able to increase. If the speed of the generator were kept constant, its load when charging a given battery at a given temperature, would gradually fall off, because of increase of back E.M.F. until you got to the point, in the absence of an automatic cut-out, when the battery might discharge into the generator if anything happened to cause the P.D. of the latter to fall.

I merely have taken the trouble to dictate the above in view of such paragraphs as the 2nd. on page 3 of EFC {E. Fowler Clarke - Electrical Engineer} 2/AD9.12.30.

PN. {Mr Northey}
  
  
From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).


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