Smile of the Day Wednesday, January 19, 2022: Outdoor Overhead Lighting

Tuesday Dec. 22, 2020’s Smile of the Day: Overhead Wires Provide Light

On this Day:

On this day in 1883 the first incandescent electric lighting system using overhead wires began service at Roselle, New Jersey. This system was devised by Thomas Edison.

Development of Incandescent Lighting:

In 1878, Edison began working on a system of electrical illumination, something he hoped could compete with gas and oil-based lighting. He began by tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. However, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue developed an efficient light bulb using a coiled platinum filament but the high cost of platinum kept the bulb from becoming a commercial success. Many other inventors had also devised incandescent lamps, including Alessandro Volta’s demonstration of a glowing wire in 1800 and inventions by Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and commercially impractical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer, William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan, and Heinrich Göbel.

These early bulbs all had flaws such as an extremely short life and they required a high electric current to operate which made them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially.  In his first attempts to solve these problems, Edison tried using a filament made of cardboard, carbonized with compressed lampblack. This burnt out too quickly to provide lasting light. He then experimented with different grasses and canes such as hemp, and palmetto, before settling on bamboo as the best filament. Edison continued trying to improve this design and on November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 for an electric lamp using “a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires”. This patent was granted on January 27, 1880.

The patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including “cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways”. It was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1,200 hours.

In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan, Spencer Trask, and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.”

The first commercial application for Edison’s incandescent light bulb in 1880 was the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company’s new steamship, the Columbia. Henry Villard, president of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, attended Edison’s 1879 demonstration. Villard was impressed and requested Edison install his electric lighting system aboard Villard’s company’s new steamer. Although Edison was hesitant at first, he agreed to Villard’s request. Most of the work was completed in May 1880, and the Columbia went to New York City, where Edison and his personnel installed Columbia’s new lighting system.

In 1880, Lewis Latimer, a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation, began working for the United States Electric Lighting Company run by Edison’s rival Hiram S. Maxim. While working for Maxim, Latimer invented a process for making carbon filaments for light bulbs and helped install broad-scale lighting systems for New York City, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London. Latimer holds the patent for the electric lamp issued in 1881, and a second patent for the “process of manufacturing carbons” (the filament used in incandescent light bulbs), issued in 1882.

On October 8, 1883, the US patent office ruled that Edison’s patent was based on the work of William E. Sawyer and was, therefore, invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years. In 1885, Latimer switched camps and started working with Edison. On October 6, 1889, a judge ruled that Edison’s electric light improvement claim for “a filament of carbon of high resistance” was valid. To avoid a possible court battle with yet another competitor, Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison’s, he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain.

The incandescent light bulb patented by Edison also began to gain widespread popularity in Europe as well. Mahen Theatre in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic), opened in 1882, and was the first public building in the world to use Edison’s electric lamps. Francis Jehl, Edison’s assistant in the invention of the lamp, supervised the installation. In September 2010, a sculpture of three giant light bulbs was erected in Brno, in front of the theatre. The first Edison light bulbs in the Nordic countries were installed at the weaving hall of the Finlayson’s textile factory in Tampere, Finland in March 1882.

Electric Power Distribution

After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison developed an electric “utility” to compete with the existing gas light utilities. On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Illuminating Company, and during the 1880s, he patented a system for electricity distribution. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. On September 4, 1882, Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station’s electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.

In January 1882, Edison switched on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station.

On January 19, 1883, his first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey.

War of the Currents

As Edison expanded his direct current (DC) power delivery system, he received stiff competition from companies installing alternating current (AC) systems. From the early 1880s, AC arc lighting systems for streets and large spaces had been an expanding business in the US. With the development of transformers in Europe and by Westinghouse Electric in the US in 1885–1886, it became possible to transmit AC long distances over thinner and cheaper wires, and “step down” (reduce) the voltage at the destination for distribution to users. This allowed AC to be used in street lighting and in lighting for small business and domestic customers, the market Edison’s patented low voltage DC incandescent lamp system was designed to supply. Edison’s DC empire suffered from one of its chief drawbacks: it was suitable only for the high density of customers found in large cities. Edison’s DC plants could not deliver electricity to customers who were more than one mile from the plant and left a patchwork of customers between plants. Small cities and rural areas could not afford an Edison style system at all, leaving a large part of the market without electrical service. AC companies expanded into this gap.

Edison expressed views that AC was unworkable and the high voltages used were dangerous. As George Westinghouse installed his first AC systems in 1886, Thomas Edison struck out personally against his chief rival stating, “Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size. He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically.” Many reasons have been suggested for Edison’s anti-AC stance. One notion is that the inventor could not grasp the more abstract theories behind AC and was trying to avoid developing a system he did not understand. Edison also appeared to have been worried about the high voltage from AC systems which were not installed properly and killed customers and hurt the sales of electric power systems in general. Primary was the fact that Edison Electric based their design on low voltage DC and switching a standard after they had installed over 100 systems was, in Edison’s mind, out of the question. By the end of 1887, Edison Electric was losing market share to Westinghouse, who had built 68 AC-based power stations to Edison’s 121 DC-based stations. To make matters worse for Edison, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another AC-based competitor) built 22 power stations.

Parallel to expanding competition between Edison and the AC companies was rising public furor over a series of deaths in the spring of 1888 caused by pole mounted high voltage alternating current lines. This turned into a media frenzy against high voltage alternating current and the seemingly greedy and callous lighting companies that used it. Edison took advantage of the public perception of AC as dangerous, and joined with self-styled New York anti-AC crusader Harold P. Brown in a propaganda campaign, aiding Brown in the public electrocution of animals with AC, and supported legislation to control and severely limit AC installations and voltages (to the point of making it an ineffective power delivery system) in what was now being referred to as a “battle of currents”. The development of the electric chair was used in an attempt to portray AC as having a greater lethal potential than DC and smear Westinghouse at the same time via Edison colluding with Brown and Westinghouse’s chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, to make sure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator.

Thomas Edison’s staunch anti-AC tactics were not sitting well with his own stockholders. By the early 1890s, Edison’s company was generating much smaller profits than its AC rivals, and the War of Currents would come to an end in 1892 with Edison forced out of controlling his own company. That year, the financier J.P. Morgan engineered a merger of Edison General Electric with Thomson-Houston that put the board of Thomson-Houston in charge of the new company called General Electric. General Electric now controlled three-quarters of the US electrical business and would compete with Westinghouse for the AC market. – as per Wikipedia

First, a Story:

Wildlife biologist, Mark LaBarr, says that many types of birds steer clear of high wires during breeding season because, as singles hitting the bar scene can attest, it’s harder to find a mate when you’re standing right next to your competition.

However, the wires don’t hurt every species of bird when it comes time to procreate. As Miyoko Chu, director of communications for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, told The New York Times, “In spring, male songbirds may perch and sing on a wire, all the better to be seen and heard by potential mates.” Play to your strengths, in other words.

as per: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/81467/why-do-birds-line-telephone-and-power-wires

Second, a Song:

Jarbas Agnelli:

One morning while reading a newspaper, Jarbas saw a photograph of birds on an electric wire. He cut out the photo and was inspired to make a song using the exact location of the birds as musical notes. He was curious to hear what melody the birds created.

He sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the newspaper. It ended up Winner of the YouTube Play Guggenheim Biennial Festival.

Just have a listen to see how incredible this sounds.

as per – https://leesbird.com/2014/05/02/birds-on-a-wire/

Thought for the Day:

My son was chewing electrical wires everyday.
So I grounded him until he conducts himself properly.

https://upjoke.com/electrical-wire-jokes

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Have a great day!

Dave & Colleen

© 2021 David J. Bilinsky and Colleen E. Bilinsky