Regulation, Constant Current

The regulation of a dynamo so that it shall give a constant current against any resistance in the outer circuits, within practical limits. It is carried out in direct current machines generally by independent regulators embodying a controlling coil with plunger or some equivalent electro-magnetic device inserted in the main circuit and nece arily of low resistance. In some regulators the work of moving the regulator is executed mechanically, but under electrical control; in others the entire work is done by the current. A typical regulator or governor (Golden's) of the first cla comprises two driven friction wheels between which is a driving friction wheel, which can engage with one driven wheel only at once. It is brought into engagement with one or the other by a solenoid and plunger. 455   STANDARD ELECTRICAL DICTIONARY. As it touches one wheel it turns it in one direction. This moves a sliding contact in one direction so as to increase a resistance. This corresponds to a motion of the plunger in one direction. As the driving wheel moves in the opposite direction by a reverse action it diminishes the resistance. Thus the increase and decrease of resistance correspond to opposite movements of the solenoid plunger, and consequently to opposite variations in the current. The whole is so adjusted that the variations in resistance maintain a constant amperage. The resistance is in the exciting circuit of the dynamo. In Brush's regulator, which is purely mechanical, a series dynamo is made to give a constant current by introducing acro the field magnets a shunt of variable resistance, whose resistance is changed by an electro-magnet, whose coils are in circuit with the main current. Carbon resistance discs are used which the electro-magnet by its attraction for its armature, pre es with varying intensity. This alters the resistance, decreasing it as the current increases and the reverse. As the connection is in shunt this action goes to maintain a constant current.