AC Motor – Rafael R.

Polyphase alternating current was important for Nikola Tesla’s motor because it allowed the dynamo that generated electric current to work without commutator. Also, Tesas induction motor worked with a rotating magnetic core which replaced the commutators. The commutators are a pair of brushes which were previously used to short circuit the armature coil. The motor also used the polyphase alternating current to function by using three currents which were out of step so that when one of the currents was reversing another current would pick it up from there.

George Westinghouse’s AC company was being dominated by Edison’s DC electric company in that Edison had a working motor to function with his DC system and Westinghouse did not. In Westinghouse’s quest to find an AC motor to function with his AC system, he found himself in a dilemma, choosing between buying the rights to Tesla’s induction motor or Galileo Ferraris motor. The difference was that tesla had designed a his motor to be intended for heavy duty commercial work while Ferraris’ motor was simply an amusing toy. Eventually Westinghouse bought the patent rights to Tesla’s motor and hired him to be a Westinghouse consultant.

While working in Tesla’s company, he struggled to cooperate with Westinghouse’s engineers. Tesla’s was correcting everything his engineers knew about making electricity and made it seem that what they previously thought was correct is irrelevant. Incorporating his induction motor into Westinghouse’s AC system was also a problem. The engineers had desighned all their AC central lighting stations to operate at a frequency of 133 cycles. Tesla had already concluded that the ideal frequency was 60 cycles and thats what his motor was based on. Making even more difficult was the fact that the engineers loathed Tesla for being rich and someday maybe even being more known than Thomas Edison.