The Electrical experimenter

i6 THE ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER May, 1917
Powerful Electro =Magnets Perform the Work of Many Men
The ordinary work of a man loading a marked manner tlie practical application
pig iron from the ground upon a railway and efficiency of large electro-magnets used
car was from 12 to 13 tons per day. The industrially. The lirst illustration shows a
gigantic electro-magnet measuring
62 inches in diameter and swung
from a crane at the plant of the
Crucible Steel Company at Pittsburgh.
This mighty magnet has
been photographed in the act of lifting
17 steel billets, each weighing
575 lbs., or a total of 8,925. It takes
but a moment's reflection to readily
conceive just how much man-power
would be required to move this
same weight of steel, not to mention
the time occupied in moving it.
A single operator, in this case the
man operating the crane, lowers the
magnet ontd the steel bars and when
in contact or nearly so, he closes the
switch supplying the magnet with
The Crucible Steel Company Have in Use at Their
Pittsburgh Plant This Gigantic 62-inch Electromagnet.
It Can Lift 4' , Tons of Steel Bars and the
Trip of a Switch Releases the Entire Load Instantly.
This Class of Work Spells "Economy" in Big
Letters and Foundries Everywhere Are Rapidly
Awakening to the Fact.
lifting magnet, however, nas rendered it
unnecessary for this laborious work to be
performed by human eflfort, and the results,
as given in the unloading of the
steamer, Enmii L. Fisher, at Indiana Harbor,
Ind., are given in brief below:
With a cargo of 4,U(JU.0OO pounds of pig
iron, the time required to unload this vessel
with twenty-eight men was two days
and two nights, which corresponds to about
3,()00 pounds per man per hour, or about 15
tons per day of ten hours. When the
lifting magnet was introduced, the total
time required for unloading was reduced
to eleven hours and was done by two men,
whose labor consisted in manipulating the
controllers in the cages of the cranes. Thus
two men and two magnets duplicated the
work of twenty-eight men in less than onefourth
the time. Under these conditions
the handling capacity of a man and a magnet
was nearly one thousand tons in eleven
hours, or about 900 tons per day of 10
hours. This is fifty times as much as was
accomplished by hand labor, or twenty
times as much as is possible even under
scientifically managed manual labor. Furthermore,
the operation was chargeable
with less than one-fourth the overhead
charges, while the vessels were enabled to
double their number of productive trips.
The lifting magnet has been adapted for
the handling of materials in all branches
of the iron and steel industry. It is used
for handling pig iron, scrap, castings, billets,
tubes, rails, plates, crop ends ; for loading
and unloading cars and vessels, and for
handling skull-cracker balls and rniscellaneous
magnetic material. In fact it seems
to be axiomatic that wherever magnetic
material, and especially raw material, is to
be handled in any considerable quantity, a
lifting magnet can be used to advantage
and will he a profitable investment.
The accompanying illustration shows in
electric current. The magnet instantly
becomes alive and exerts
several tons of magnetic tractive
power and holds the billets to its
face securely, as pictured in the illustration.
The crane may swing
along for several hundred feet, carrying
its suspended load, and as
soon as it reaches the desired location
the magnet is lowered ; when
the operator opens the switch the
magnet instantly releases its 4' 2 tons
of steel.
The second illustration shows a
powerful electro-magnet at work in
the yards of the Chicago, Milwaukee
and St. Paul Railroad's West
Milwaukee shop, the magnet measuring
43 inches in diameter and lifting
in this case a locomotive drive
wheel. The lifting magnet is an attractive
proposition to-day and not
only appeals in large sizes but in the very
small sizes as well. The small hand type
electro-magnet is particularly efticacious for
picking up quantities of iron nails, screws,
etc., in hardware stores and stock rooms
and finds application in a thousand and one
different ways daily.
43-inch Magnet Lifting a Locomotive Drive
Wheel at the West Milwaukee Shop of the
C. M. & St. Paul Railway. Another Instance
of What the Lifting Magnet Is Capable of
Doing.
THE ELECTRIC HEATER FOR THE
. KITCHEN BOILER.
The accompanying semi-sectional view
of an ordinary kitchen boiler shows how
a recently perfected electric water heater
is attached to it. This heater heats the
water before you turn the faucet and not
—some time afterward. The tank is always
charged with scalding water at any temperature
you wish
up to 200=F.
(212 ° F. boiling
point), or enough
heat for about
five baths—always
on tap.
The heater has
six steps—and the
regulator is a si.xpoint
current control.
When no
water is being
drawn the heater
will probably be
cut eritirely out so
that no electricity
is being used.
Then as some
water is drawn
the regulator picks
out that step of
the heater which
will pump back
into the boiler the
same amount of
heat that is drawn
from the faucet
in the hot water.
-At the sixth step
the regulator applies
two full
.horsepower, storing
heat at 1007o
An Electric Heating
Unit That Fits the
Kitchen Boiler.
efficiency. It is claimed that this particular
electric water heater will operate on
IS to 20 per cent less energy than the circulation
type heater, for the same monthly
gallon production.
The present heater has been specially designed
to make it self-cleaning. Under
tne intermittent operation of the thermal
control there appears a slight but constant
opening and closing of the split heating
tube, which readily cracks off all scale and
any precipitate forming on the tube. This
deposit accumulating at the base of the
heater is then easily flushed out of the full
size l'4-inch drain. This self-cleaning
feature is, perhaps, next to efficiency in importance
to the housewife to whom a
burned-out heater means not only needless
expense but several days' interruption in
the hot water service and a recent engineering
report gives the e.xternal circulation
type water heater four months in which to
become absolutelv choked with scale.
CAN SINK SUBMARINES BY
WIRELESS, SAYS INVENTOR.
Tlicodore Eichholz, a young engineer
and architect of Pittsburgh, has invented a
wireless device that may be used to destroy
submarines by causing an explosion of
gases that are always present in submersibles,
he claims. For several years the inventor
was connected with the United
States Corps of Engineers.
Mr. Fichholz stated that just recently
a small experimental apparatus in his home
on Xcville Island sunk a small "dummy"
submarine in the Ohio River, five miles
away. The destroyed model was of steel
and submerged to a depth of ten feet.
.Ml submarines while under water are
propelled by electric storage batteries
which throw off a gas that pervades the
hull. This gas, Eichholz says, he detonates
by the wireless current and destruction
follows. The apparatus will be submitted
to the l'..S. Government at once.