CHAPTER XIV
. THE JUNIOR DYNAMO AND A COHERER OUTFIT CAN BE SEEN ON THE LOWER PART OF THE TABLE.]
The
Boy
Electrician
_Practical Plans for Electrical_
_Apparatus for work and play, with an explanation_
_Of the principles of every-day electricity._
By
ALFRED P MORGAN
_With illustrations by the author_
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Copyright, 1913, by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
Published July, 1914
_All rights reserved_
THE BOY ELECTRICIAN
NORWOOD PRESS
Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.
TO THE SELF-RELIANT
*BOYS OF AMERICA,*
OUR FUTURE ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS, THAN WHOM
NONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD ARE BETTER ABLE
TO WORK OUT AND SOLVE THE PROBLEMS
THAT EVER CONFRONT YOUNG
MANHOOD, THIS BOOK
IS CORDIALLY
DEDICATED.
THE BOY ELECTRICIAN
INTRODUCTION
Once upon a time, and this is a true tale, a boy had a whole railroad system for a toy. The train ran automatically, propelled by tiny electric motors, the signals went up and down, the station was reached, a bell rang, the train moved on again and was off on its journey around many feet of track to come back over the old route.
The boy viewed his gift with raptured eyes, and then his face changed and he cried out in the bitterness of his disappointment: "But what do I do?" The toy was so elaborate that the boy was left entirely out of the play. Of course he did not like it. His cry tells a long story.
The prime instinct of almost any boy at play is to _make_ and to _create_. He will _make_ things of such materials as he has at hand, and use the whole force of dream and fancy to create something out of nothing. The five-year-old will lay half a dozen wooden blocks together with a spool on one end and tell you it is a steam train. And it is. He has both made and created an engine, which he sees but which you don’t, for the blocks and spool are only a symbol of his creation. Give his older brother a telephone receiver, some wire and bits of brass, and he will make a wireless telegraph outfit and listen to a steamship hundreds of miles away spell out its message to the shore.
The wireless outfit is not a symbol, but something that you can both hear and see in operation even though you may not understand the whispering of the dots and dashes. And as soon as the mystery of this modern wonder more firmly grips your imagination, you perhaps may come to realize that we are living more and more in the age of electricity and mechanism. Electricity propels our trains, lights our houses and streets, makes our clothes, cures our ills, warms us, cooks for us and performs an innumerable number of other tasks at the turning of a little switch. A mere list is impossible.
Almost every boy experiments at one time or another with electricity and electrical apparatus. It is my purpose in writing this book to open this wonderland of science and present it in a manner which can be readily understood, and wherein a boy may "do something." Of course there are other books with the same purport, but they do not accomplish their end. They are not practical. I can say this because as a boy I have read and studied them and they have fallen far short of teaching me or my companions the things that we were seeking to learn. If they have failed in this respect, they have done so perhaps not through any inability of the author, but from the fact that they have not been written from the _boy’s standpoint_. They tell what the author _thought_ a boy ought to know but not what he really does want to know. The apparatus described therein is for the most part imaginary. The author thought it might be possible for a boy to build motors, telegraph instruments, etc., out of old bolts and tin cans, but _he never tried to do so himself_.
The apparatus and experiments that I have described have been constructed and carried out by _boys_. Their problems and their questions have been studied and remedied. I have tried to present practical matter considered wholly from a boy’s standpoint, and to show the young experimenter just what he can do with the tools and materials in his possession or not hard to obtain.
To the boy interested in science, a wide field is open. There is no better education for any boy than to begin at the bottom of the ladder and climb the rungs of scientific knowledge, step by step. It equips him with information which may prove of inestimable worth in an opportune moment.
There is an apt illustration in the boy who watched his mother empty a jug of molasses into a bowl and replace the cork. His mother told him not to disturb the jug, as it was empty. He persisted, however, and turned the jug upside down. No more molasses came, but _out crawled a fly_. New developments in science will never cease. Invention will follow invention. The unexpected is often a valuable clue. The Edisons and Teslas of to-day have not discovered everything. _There is a fly in the molasses_, to be had by persistence. Inspiration is but a starting-point. Success means work, days, nights, weeks, and years.
There can be no boy who will follow exactly any directions given to him, or do exactly as he is told, of his own free will. He will "bolt" at the first opportunity. If forced or obliged to do as he is directed, his
## action will be accompanied by many a "why?" Therefore in presenting the
following chapters I have not only told how to _make_ the various motors, telegraphs, telephones, radio receivers, etc. but have also explained the principles of electricity upon which they depend for their operation, and how the same thing is accomplished in the every-day world. In giving directions or offering cautions, I have usually stated the reason for so doing, in the hope that this information may be a stimulant to the imagination of the young experimenter and a useful guide in enabling him to proceed along some of the strange roads on which he will surely go.
ALFRED P. MORGAN
UPPER MONTCLAIR, N. J.
THE BOY ELECTRICIAN ............................................... INTRODUCTION ....................................................
## CHAPTER I MAGNETS AND MAGNETISM .................................
## CHAPTER II STATIC ELECTRICITY ...................................
## CHAPTER III STATIC ELECTRIC MACHINES ............................
## CHAPTER IV CELLS AND BATTERIES ..................................
## CHAPTER V ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND MAGNETIC INDUCTION ..............
## CHAPTER VI ELECTRICAL UNITS .....................................
## CHAPTER VII ELECTRICAL APPURTENANCES ............................
## CHAPTER VIII ELECTRICAL MEASURING INSTRUMENTS ...................
## CHAPTER IX BELLS, ALARMS, AND ANNUNCIATORS ......................
## CHAPTER X ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS ...................................
## CHAPTER XI MICROPHONES AND TELEPHONES ...........................
## CHAPTER XII INDUCTION COILS .....................................
## CHAPTER XIII TRANSFORMERS .......................................
## CHAPTER VIV WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY .................................
## CHAPTER XV A WIRELESS TELEPHONE .................................
## CHAPTER XVI ELECTRIC MOTORS .....................................
## CHAPTER XVII DYNAMOS ............................................
## CHAPTER XVIII AN ELECTRIC RAILWAY ...............................
## CHAPTER XIX MINIATURE LIGHTING ..................................
##