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).
Investigating the causes of failure in 20 HP dynamos and the steps taken.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 51\1\ Scan387 | |
| Date | 5th June 1924 | |
| COPY. X4385 Wor. {Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} BY6/H. 5. 6. 24. --- FAILURE OF 20 HP. DYNAMOS. ------------------------- Referring to Brl/H. 4. 6. 24. as you have had a copy of this I think the best thing will be for me to put the facts of the case as I understand them before you, before writing to Br. {T. E. Bellringer - Repair Manager} In the first place, I issued definite instructions to the Repair Dept: for Depots that dynamos were not to be dismantled or re-fitted at Depots, but if trouble with dynamos occurred, the right thing to do was to have sufficient spare dynamos at the Depot to deal with same. The faulty dynamo was to be returned to the Works. By doing this, it meant that we should have had every case of complaint before us, and would have been able to investigate precisely what the trouble was. By the foregoing I do not mean to say that such instructions would have obviated the trouble. It merely means that we should have got it first hand. We expected from the start to have a fair amount of trouble with dynamos as they represent a new proposal, the conditions of running of which we are not intimate with thoroughly, and therefore it was only reasonable to expect that we would have, after studying the running conditions, to make certain modifications, which modifications have been made from time to time, as a result of Mr. Brock's representations in conjunction with the trouble which have been brought to my attention. The trouble with the dynamos we are just beginning to understand. The majority of them are due to a {Mr Adams} /- The fact that originally we had the brushes too much retarded by design. b/- We had not instructed a sufficient undercut to clear away the micas. c/- A bad connection between the dynamo and the battery was also a cause of trouble. Contd. | ||