RFD America

Contents

INTRODUCTION
PART I
WATER-POWER
CHAPTER I
A WORKING PLANT
The "agriculturist"—An old chair factory—A neighbor's home-coming—The idle wheel in commission again—Light, heat and power for nothing—Advantages of electricity
CHAPTER II
A LITTLE PROSPECTING
Small amount of water required for an electric plant—Exploring, on a dull day—A rough and ready weir—What a little water will do—The water wheel and the dynamo—Electricity consumed the instant it is produced—The price of the average small plant, not counting labor
CHAPTER III
HOW TO MEASURE WATER-POWER
What is a horsepower?—How the Carthaginians manufactured horsepower—All that goes up must come down—How the sun lifts water up for us to use—Water the ideal power for generating electricity—The weir—Table for estimating flow of streams with a weir—Another method of measuring—Figuring water horsepower—The size of the wheel—What head is required—Quantity of water necessary
CHAPTER IV
THE WATER WHEEL AND HOW TO INSTALL IT
Different types of water wheels—The impulse and the reaction wheels—The impulse wheel adapted to high heads and small amount of water—Pipe lines—Table of resistance in pipes—Advantages and disadvantages of the impulse wheel—Other forms of impulse wheels—The reaction turbine, suited to low heads and large quantity of water—Its advantages and limitations—Developing a water-power project: the dam; the race; the flume; the penstock; and the tailrace—Water rights for the farmer
PART II
ELECTRICITY
CHAPTER V
THE DYNAMO; WHAT IT DOES, AND HOW
Electricity compared to the heat and light of the Sun—The simple dynamo—The amount of electric energy a dynamo will generate—The modern dynamo—Measuring power in terms of electricity—The volt—The ampere—The ohm—The watt and the kilowatt—Ohm's Law of the electric circuit, and some examples of its application—Direct current, and alternating current—Three types of direct-current dynamos: series, shunt, and compound
CHAPTER VI
WHAT SIZE PLANT TO INSTALL
The farmer's wife his partner—Little and big plants—Limiting factors—Fluctuations in water supply—The average plant—The actual plant—Amount of current required for various operations—Standard voltage—A specimen allowance for electric light—Heating and cooking by electricity—Electric power: the electric motor
CHAPTER VII
TRANSMISSION LINES
Copper wire—Setting of poles—Loss of power in transmission—Ohm's Law and examples of how it is used in figuring size of wire—Copper-wire tables—Examples of transmission lines—When to use high voltages—Over-compounding a dynamo to overcome transmission loss
CHAPTER VIII
WIRING THE HOUSE
The insurance code—Different kinds of wiring described—Wooden moulding cheap and effective—The distributing panel—Branch circuits—Protecting the circuits—The use of porcelain tubes and other insulating devices—Putting up chandeliers and wall-brackets—"Multiple" connections—How to connect a wall switch—Special wiring required for heat and power circuits—Knob and cleat wiring, its advantages and disadvantages
CHAPTER IX
THE ELECTRIC PLANT AT WORK
Direct-connected generating sets—Belt drive—The switchboard—Governors and voltage regulators—Methods of achieving constant pressure at all loads: Over-compounding the dynamo; A system of resistances (a home-made electric radiator); Regulating voltage by means of the rheostat—Automatic devices—Putting the plant in operation
PART III
GASOLINE ENGINES, WINDMILLS, ETC. THE STORAGE BATTERIES
CHAPTER X
GASOLINE ENGINE PLANTS
The standard voltage set—Two-cycle and four-cycle gasoline engines—Horsepower, and fuel consumption—Efficiency of small engines and generators—Cost of operating a one-kilowatt plant
CHAPTER XI
THE STORAGE BATTERY
What a storage battery does—The lead battery and the Edison battery—Economy of tungsten lamps for storage batteries—The low-voltage battery for electric light—How to figure the capacity of a battery—Table of light requirements for a farm house—Watt-hours and lamp-hours—The cost of storage battery current—How to charge a storage battery—Care of storage batteries
CHAPTER XII
BATTERY CHARGING DEVICES
The automatic plant most desirable—How an automobile lighting and starting system works—How the same results can be achieved in house lighting, by means of automatic devices—Plants without automatic regulation—Care necessary—The use of heating devices on storage battery current—Portable batteries—An electricity "route"—Automobile power for lighting a few lamps

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Even the tiny trout brook becomes a thing of utility as well as of joy

Farm labor and materials built this crib and stone dam

Measuring a small stream with a weir

Efficient modern adaptations of the archaic undershot and overshot water wheels

A direct-current dynamo or motor, showing details of construction

Details of voltmeter or ammeter

Instantaneous photograph of high-pressure water jet being quenched by buckets of a tangential wheel

A tangential wheel, and a dynamo keyed to the same shaft—the ideal method for generating electricity

A rough-and-ready farm electric plant, supplying two farms with light, heat and power; and a Ward Leonard-type circuit breaker for charging storage batteries

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