Looking Back: Introducing Electric Motors

A hollow-hexagon turret lathe driven by a Westinghouse Type S motor (1905).

There have been many major turning points in the evolution of metal working and manufacturing machine shops, and the introduction of the electric motor fixed directly on machine tools to drive the systems marks one of those times. Electric motors are something we take for granted today, but the technology was still and up and coming in 1905 when Canadian Metalworking first began publishing.

In our continued celebration of this magazine’s 110th anniversary, this time we focused on an article in the February 1905 issue “Electric Drive for Machinery”. The piece outlined many of the foreseen advantages of a new generation of electric motor driven machine tools. The technology could move a shop away from needing to use a centralized power system that would drive multiple machines through a network of belts and shaft lines.

“Managers and superintendents have been somewhat slow in adopting the electric drive, partly because they have not recognized its advantages and partly because the electric motor has been regarded as a rather delicate piece of apparatus,” noted the writer.

“It is the intention of this article to place in the hands of managers and superintendents the general characteristics and behavior of motors as applied to machine tool work, with the belief that this treatment will reach many to whom the electric motor has been more or less of an enigma.”

The article goes on to acknowledge that early electric motors were “crude and weak mechanically”, but it also reports that over the previous 10 years electric motors were being implemented in a much broader range of applications, and the time to adapt the technology in machine shops had arrived. There was an emphasis placed on the efficiencies and productivity advantages of the new electric drive machines.

“In the machine shop and manufacturing plant the electric motor is today effecting economies in operation and an increase in production to a marked degree, and the time is not far off when the plant adhering to the older method of driving must fall behind in the race for commercial supremacy.”

A stumbling block to wider adoption at the time was the expense of the new technology, but the advantages to setting up a new shop with only direct electric motors was seen as an obvious choice.

“When directly driven tools are used the cost of overhead building construction is materially lessened…In the case of the mechanical drive the complete line shafting must be run in order to permit the use of a single machine tool. This presents an interesting contrast to the individual tool drive where only the tools in actual use are consuming power.

“The individual drive goes a step farther. With this system each machine tool has a separate motor and may be located wherever it is deemed advisable. Under these conditions any tool, even in the most remote part of the shop, may be operated, and it will draw from the power house only the energy required to drive that tool and to perform the necessary work on the material.”

A Brown & Sharpe milling machine driven by a Type S Westinghouse electric motor (1905).

And as commonplace as plug-and-play technology seems to us today, in 1905 even a description of how the machines would receive their power needed to be explained:

“A pair or at most three wires are all that is necessary to convey power to drive the machine.”

And even in 1905 the energy efficiency of the electric motor was being applauded:

“Under average conditions the horse-power wasted in driving belts and shafting is astonishingly large…the percentage of the total horse-power output of the engine which is actually useful at the machines varies from 22 to 77 per cent.

“Too much stress cannot be laid upon the importance of economic transmission. While the cost of power is but a small percentage of the total cost of the product, the possibility of effecting a reduction in this item of expense should not be passed over lightly.”

Aside from the economics, the individual electric drive was also embraced because of its ability to allow small variations in speed may under load with very little effort.

The argument for transitioning to machinery driven by electric motors versus mechanical drive systems was very strong back in 1905, and the list of reasons was compelling:

“The advantages of the electric drive might be summed up as follows: safety of operation; economy in space occupied, in transmission and in application; reduction of waste load; skilled attendance unnecessary; flexibility as regards location of tool; heavy foundations unnecessary; no vibration; absence of strain on roof and walls of building hence a reduction in the cost of construction, and lessened risk of breakdowns.”

We know today that breakdowns still occur and skilled operators are necessary, but for the time the move to electric drive was a step in the right direction.