Electricity Notes.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 7, 1 May 1906, Page 171

Electricity Notes.

We learn that Mr. Francis Clarke, electrical engineer of the Chris tchurch Meat Co., has resigned. ****** Mr. T. L. M. Millar, consulting and electrical engineer, of Belfast, Ireland, is on a health visit to New Zealand. ****** The Wellington Meat Export Co. are now operating their large gas plant for the purpose of generating electricity, and the system is said to be entirely satisfactory. ****** The new scheme for Timaru includes a threewire, 440-volt lighting and power plant. There are to be about three hundred incandescent and twelve arc lamps, but nothing has yet been decided as to the size of the units to be installed. ****** The Wellington Woollen Co. are extending their electrical plant, and have purchased a 33-k.w. 100-volt generator. This machine will operate m parallel with their present plant for lighting the new extensions. ****** The New Plymouth people have in view the installation of an additional 100-k.w. turbine and generator for their power station. This will make the third set, and sufficient power will thereby be obtained for a considerable time to come. ****** Since the appearance of the article in Progress describing the Christchurch tramway power-house, a second Curtis turbine has been installed, and now it is proposed to extend the plant by adding a third machine of 500-k.w. capacity, also another Babcock and Wilcox boiler, thus making one boiler for each turbine. Great interest will be taken from time to time m the working of this plant. ****** The proposal to raise a loan of £25,000 for the new destructer and generating plant for Auckland has now taken concrete form. Mr. W. G. T. Goodman, of Dunedin, has tended his report, and the committee have adopted his proposals. The lay-out for the engines, generators, boilers, battery, and foundations, etc., is £10,566, and for overhead feeders and distributing mains, £6,624. ****** Suction gas-producer plants are meeting with such increased appreciation on the part of flaxmillers in the Foxton district as to prompt us to suggest that a lighting set might easily be run off the respective engines without materially reducing their efficiency, Four producer plants have been installed in this district during the last three or four weeks. ****** Borthwicks' freezing works at Hastings are now in full swing. The whole of the machinery, with the exception of the freezers, is driven by electricity, and there is little doubt that in time this motive

power will be adopted by other large freezing companies in New Zealand. In the old days of steam plants hundreds of yards of belt-drive added expense and inconvenience to the cares of works proprietors. Now short belts, connected to electric motors, effect a saving in efficiency of from 15 to to 20 per cent., and cost very much less m up-keep. ****** The Sydney City Council are to be congratulated on the figures of the electric lighting station there. In the last fifteen months the business done in supplying customers was equal to that which would have been transacted by the various private companies for the past ten years. At the end of the fifteen months the profit was shown to be £7,000. On the other hand, the Melbourne Corporation, at the end of eleven years' work, made a profit of only though it is only fair to say that the Corporation bought out private companies, and thus increased its liability correlatively with its output. ****** The electric lighting of our International Exhibition, which has been secured by Messrs. Scott Bros., Christchurch, is to include one unit of 120 k.w., two of 75 k.w., while about 50 k.w. will be supplied by the Christchurch Council. The illuminating of the mam building will be left to gas, and we shall certainly witness keen competition between the two systems. A complete demonstration of the suitability of one over the other for this form of lighting should eventuate. The Art Gallery at the Exhibition will be lighted by arc lamps having concentric diffusers, and no doubt they will provide the required even diffusion of light. Illustrations were recently given m La Locomotion Automobile of a method of replacing oil lamps by small incandescent electric lamps for use in motor cars. By the employment of a special adapter, these lamps can be applied at once to the ordinary oil burners. They will burn for 200 hours and require only two accumulators, each charge lasting sixteen hours. The current expended is 2.4 watts, with an electromotive force of four volts. Zircomumrhodium filaments are used in lieu of carbons in order to economise the current. The great advantage claimed for the electric lamp is that they are not liable to be extinguished by draughts. It is not proposed to substitute electricity for the powerful acetylene searchlights in front of the motor, but only for the small side-lamps and tail-lamp. Messrs. Crompton and Co., Ltd., have just issued a pamphlet descriptive of their direct-reading electrical pyrometers, intended for determining the temperature for such processes as annealing or case hardening, or for gas plants, steam plants, furnace and flue gases. The mam feature of the instrument appears to be an open scale ammeter, sufficiently sensitive for the purpose but designed for workshop use.