Student+Page-+Faraday+Disc

The Faraday Disc A Regeneration by James Mayers and Yuval Millet

Drawing of Faraday disk, the first electric generator, invented by British scientist Michael Faraday in 1831. The copper disk rotated between the poles of a horseshoe shaped magnet. The motion induced a radial flow of current in the disk. The current flows into the spring contact sliding along the edge of the disk, through an external circuit, and back into the disk through the axle. The labeled parts are given in the caption as: (A) inducing magnet, (D)induced disk, (B) binding-screw for current entering or exiting axis of disk, (B') binding-screw for current entering or exiting circumference of disk, (m) rubber (sliding spring contact) for edge of disk.

__Note__: This is a drawing made by a nineteenth-century owner of an original Faraday Disc, as subseqently "Foucault's and Le Roix's Apparatus". While our design does deviate from this diagram, it maintains the primary design of the Faraday Disk.

__Specific Designations__: We used a red-and-silver horsehoe magnet only to retain the classical structure presented in the diagram, despite its relatively immature magnetic properties. The disc had a diameter of four inches. Blocks to suspend discs were made of balsa wood, and spools were connected to low-watt lightbulb.

__Explanation of the Apparatus__: This Faraday disc, as a simple mechanical generator, converts mechanical energy input through crank rotations into electrical energy through the potential difference between the center and circumference of the disc, passing, in opposite directions depending on the direction of the rotation, through the wired spools noted at B and B'. This original disc was obsoleted by its inefficiency, caused by the "counterflow" in the circuit outside of the influence of the magnetic field, which reduced the power outage of the disc. This would eventually be solved by enclosing the circuit with magnets strategically placed to dismay counterflow production, but already better generators had been established.

__Final Picture__: To be displayed Friday.