Common Revolutions

Have you ever sat in a Ferris wheel and wondered how the capsule in which you are sitting is being lit? Neither have I. Nevertheless, you may think the park runs a line from a power source into the spindle of the Ferris wheel, at which point the line splits to each of the capsules. On further thought, of course, you would see that you have been deceived by the natural inclination towards simplification as the lines would wind themselves into oblivion.

Before we get to the actual mechanism that transfers power to the capsule, let us analyze the structure of the Ferris wheel. You have a spindle, or a hub, which acts as the center of the Ferris wheel, connected to revolving rods, or spokes, which in turn connect to the capsules.The electrical setup works with that structure. You would have a line running from the power source to the hub. You would also have lines running from the spokes to the capsules. However, you need to find a mechanism that transfers the power between the stationary lines in the hub and the moving lines in the spokes without connecting those two lines together.

The solution is to use a motor slip ring. Imagine a simpler setup where you have a stationary copper wire and a rotating brass wire. The former connects to the power source, the latter connects to a light, and you want to illuminate the light with the power source. The brass wire rotates on a wooden wheel.

In order to transfer the power between the stationary wire to the rotating wire, you could attach a concentric aluminum ring onto the wheel with connectors between that ring and the rotating wire. Then, you could lightly touch the edge of the stationary wire to the aluminum ring. The current would flow from the stationary wire to the rotating ring to the rotating wire.

This mechanism essentially illustrates how a motor slip ring would power the capsules of a Ferris wheel. Of course, this mechanism would be more complex in a Ferris wheel. The metals of the conductors would also vary as well. In fact, one of the downsides of this contraption is that the friction between the edge of the stationary wire and the surface of the revolving ring tends to wear down the material. In addition, the entire process produces a lot of background noise that may annoy patrons of the machine.

This design nevertheless has revolutionized electrical engineering since the past century. This whole system not only has applications in entertainment in Ferris wheels but usable energy as well in wind turbines. In that case, you also have revolving parts connected to stationary parts, and you need to transfer power between the stationary parts to the revolving parts. Make no mistake about it – there are more applications for this mechanism than we could list.

What is clear is that a rumination about what may seem like an entirely mundane thing reveals something a lot more complex. What else about the everyday world exists that only appears simple at first?

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Slip rings are an essential component of wind turbines. They facilitate effective transmission of signals and electric power from stationary cables in nacelle to the rotating parts. Here’s a guide to buying them.