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Neeff's wheel, also known as the Blitzrad (German: "lightning wheel" or "spark wheel") is a historical electrical apparatus. It is a kind of contact breaker, designed to interrupt an electrical circuit at periodic intervals, producing visible sparks. It was first presented in the 1830s by the German scientist Christian Ernst Neeff (1782–1849).
The arrangement consists of a toothed wheel against which a conductive wire is pressed (by a spring something like that of a mousetrap). Electrical current flows through the wheel into the wire. When the gear wheel is turned, each tooth of the gear causes the wire to ride up and then briefly drop down, losing contact with the wheel and generating a spark. The gear wheel can be driven by a hand crank.
Instead of air, the gaps between the teeth of the gear wheel may be filled with a solid electrical insulator such as ebony wood.[1] Neeff credited this innovation to his colleague Johann Philipp Wagner.[2]
Neeff's wheel was a forerunner of the modern contact breaker.
References
edit- ^ Heinrich August Pierer (1857). "Blitzrad". Pierer's Universal-Lexikon (in German). Vol. 2. Altenburg. p. 895. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Christian Ernst Neeff (1835). "Das Blitzrad, ein Apparat zu rasch abwechselnden galvanischen Schliessungen und Trennungen" [The spark wheel, an apparatus for rapidly alternating closings and openings of galvanic circuits]. Annalen der Physik und Chemie (in German). 36 (11): 352–366. Bibcode:1835AnP...112..352N. doi:10.1002/andp.18351121103. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
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