An old engraving showing a spark produced by a simple magneto during Victorian times. It is from a book of the 1890s on discoveries and inventions during the 1800s. A magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce periodic pulses of alternating current. Here light is produced using a strong horseshoe magnet (right) and a soft iron rod. Copper wire wrapped around the rod terminating at a small copper disk. As soon as the rod is tapped against the magnet, the abrupt movement causes the wire to separate from the disk – a spark is created when this contact is broken.
An old engraving showing a spark produced by a simple magneto during Victorian times. It is from a book of the 1890s on discoveries and inventions during the 1800s. A magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce periodic pulses of alternating current. Here light is produced using a strong horseshoe magnet (right) and a soft iron rod. Copper wire wrapped around the rod terminating at a small copper disk. As soon as the rod is tapped against the magnet, the abrupt movement causes the wire to separate from the disk – a small spark is created when this contact is broken. Unlike a dynamo, a magneto does not contain a commutator to produce direct current. It is categorised as a form of alternator, although it is usually considered distinct from most other alternators, which use field coils rather than permanent magnets. Production of electric current from a moving magnetic field was demonstrated by Faraday in 1831. The first magneto-electric machines to produce electric current from magnetism used permanent magnets; the dynamo machine, which used an electromagnet to produce the magnetic field, was developed later. The machine built by Hippolyte Pixii in 1832 used a rotating permanent magnet to induce alternating voltage in two fixed coils.
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Photo credit: © M&N / Alamy / Afripics
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