1890's Antique Electric Gramme Ring Armature Dynamo

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This is an Antique Gramme Ring Armature Dynamo. Zenobe Gramme developed the first generators used for commercial power in industry in the 1870's. Gramme's ring armature later lead to the development of the drum armature. There are no markings on this machine to identify a manufacturer or specific date of manufacture. My impression is this dynamo dates to the 1890's, or possibly the 1880's, based on its construction and the early electrical technology it represents. When I purchased this dynamo it was missing its brushes, drive belts, and was very dirty. The pulley driven side of the armature had a early resin that had cracked and broken away which I repaired. I painted the armature and field winding's. I replaced the missing belts with two treadle sewing machine belts. I also replaced the brushes with brass strips and soldered fine strand copper on the underside of the brushes. All of this is explained on the demonstration You Tube video of this dynamo in action. /watch?v=lYvDspoev0U An identical Gramme ring dynamo at is at Denison University and can be seen at: /EarlyApparatus/Electricity/Generator/Generator.html The armature commutator segments are individually put into place with screws. The armature ring is an iron core wrapped with 16 coils hooked up in series. The armature is excited by the field's residual magnetism and read more

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