March, 19 2 3 
motors 
IN THE 
A Universally Applicable Machine, The Motor Should 
Be Understood by Every Up-to-Date Housewife 
ETHEL R. PEYSER 
HOME 
T HE motor is like the old traditional 
woman; it takes its sustenance from 
another—in this case not from the 
currency maker, but from the current maker, 
the dynamo, or generator—and turns it 
into service for running things. 
Household electrical equipment is divid¬ 
ed into two general classes—those that are 
motor driven and those that are electrically 
heated. 
In this article only the motor driven 
apparatus will be considered. 
Some of the motor driven utensils that 
we all know are the wash¬ 
ing machine, dishwasher, 
electric piano player, vac¬ 
uum cleaner, electric fan, 
electrically operated phono¬ 
graph, clothes dryer, (in 
which the water is driven 
out by centrifugal force 
rapid 
driven 
cream 
mixer, 
The motor attached to a sewing 
machine has revolutionized domestic 
sewing 
resulting 
from the 
whirling of a tub 
by a motor) ice 
freezer, egg beater, 
whipper, chopper, grinder, 
buffer, etc. 
To understand the mo¬ 
tor, one must first under¬ 
stand the dynamo, or gener¬ 
ator which supplies it with 
power. 
The generator consists of 
an iron core or armature, 
wound with wire, which is 
made to revolve at high 
speed through a magnetized 
space. This magnetized 
space or “field”, is caused 
by electro-magnets placed 
about the revolving core, 
or armature. The arma¬ 
ture, in the act of revolving 
through this magnetized space, cuts 
through the imaginary “lines of force,” 
which is the name given to the flow of mag¬ 
netism that fills the area in which the arma¬ 
ture revolves. In cutting'through this mag- 
The extremes of household motors 
From 3/4ths to l/200th horse power. 
Courtesy General Electric Company. 
The buffer and the beater are both elec¬ 
trical units in this kitchen group that 
use minute motors 
netism, an electric current is set up in the 
wires wound around the armature. No one 
knows exactly why this happens. We do 
know, however, that it does happen, and 
that we can measure the effect accurately. 
It has been found furthermore that the cur¬ 
rent set up in the armature varies accord¬ 
ing to the speed with which it turns and 
also in relation to the number of turns of 
wire wound about it. 
The generator must always be operated 
from an outside source of power, such as 
the steam turbine, water wheel, gasoline 
engine, etc. By building 
generators in different 
ways, either an alternat¬ 
ing current, (one which 
fluctuates back and forth, 
and knowm as A. C.) 
or a direct current, (which 
flows uniformly in the same 
direction, and called D. C.) 
can be produced. The speed 
of the change, in alternat¬ 
ing current, from one direc¬ 
tion to the other, is termed 
frequency, and this is mea¬ 
sured in cycles. Sixty cycles 
means that the current alter¬ 
nately flows sixty times in 
one direction, and sixty 
times in the other in the 
course of a second. 
The motor is, generally 
speaking, the same kind of 
a device as the generator, 
but whereas the generator is 
for supplying the electric 
current, the motor is for 
using it and converting it 
into mechanical power. 
There are three 
to remember in connection 
with the purchase of a motor driven de¬ 
vice. Whether the motor is constructed to 
be run by alternating or direct current; if 
the former, the number of cycles for which 
(Continued on page 134) 
A general utility power motor, to 
which the housewife attaches a belt 
and can drive a number of units 
things 
The motor for a vacuum 
cleaner is cased in this 
fashion and drives the 
suction fan 
