A Switching Transistor D-C to A-C

Converter Having an Output Frequency

Proportional to the D-C Input Voltage
G. H. ROYER

ASSOCIATE MEMBER AlEE

H E combination of transistors and

transformers constructed of square
hysteresis loop material has produced
much useful circuitry outside of the realm
of magnetic amplifiers per see In this
paper a highly efficient and extremely
precise converter for transforming direct
to alternating current, yielding a squarewave output whose frequency is proportional to the d-e input voltage, will be described. From among the many uses of
this converter, the following applications
will be discussed: 1. a transducer for telemetering systems, and 2. an integrator
which has found application as an analogue to digital converter.

Transistor Switches
The use of junction transistors as controlled switches has been described previously,1,2 but a few of the main points
will be reviewed here. Fig. 1 (A) shows
the collector characteristics of a PNP
transistor in the common emitter connection, as illustrated in Fig. l(B). For
the load line shown, two operating points
are of interest: cutoff, point F, where the
transistor sustains almost the entire supply voltage E with very little leakage current and conduction, point 5, where a
large enough base drive is applied to
sa turate the transistor and reduce the
voltage drop Vee to its lowest possible
value. Cutoff occurs when the base voltage is slightly positive giving a small
positive current in the base. Typical
values of cutoff current for small 200megawatt 2N74 fused junction transistors
are from 5 to 50 microamperes at a supply
vol tage of 45 volts and a base voltage of
+0.5 to 5 volts. In the conducting state
voltage drops of 0.1 to 0.5 volt are obtained with 50 to 150 milliamperes' load
current; however, the amount of base
Paper 55-73, recommended by the AlEE Magnetic
Amplifiers Committee and approved by the AlEE
Committee on Technical Operations for presentation at the AlEE Winter General Meeting, New
York, N. Y., January 31-February 4,1955. Manuscript submitted October 25, 1954; made available
for printing December 6, 1954.
G. H. ROYER is with the Westinghouse Electric
Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa,

322

current required to saturate the transistor

depend s great1y on the gain of the transistor and the amount of load current.
The effective transistor impedance can be
changed from over a megohm at cutoff to
a few ohms at saturation by control of the
base voltage and current; this can be
compared to the operation of a relay
where the emitter-collector circuit is
analogous to the contacts and the baseemitter circuit is analogous to the energizing coil. For the purpose of this paper,
the above information can be summarized
by two simple rules. The PNP transistor
switch will conduct if the base is negative
with respect to either emitter or collector
and will block if the base is positive with
respect to both emitter and collector.

Basic Circuit of Converter

Two junction transistors used as controlled switches and a transformer with a
square hysteresis loop core material form
the basic circuit of the voltage-to-frequency converter illustrated in Fig. 2.
.A. typical -i curve for such a transformer
constructed of Hipernik V is also illustrated in Fig. 3. The two transistors alternately conduct and switch the input
voltage Vi n across windings 2 and 3,
causing the flux in the core to be cycled
between positive and negative saturation.

Windings 1 and 4 act as control windings

for the switches, and the output, a square
wave, appears on winding 5. To follow
this operation in detail, as~ume that
transistor A is conducting, which places
the input voltage Vin across winding 2,
positive at the top and negative at the
bottom. Voltages with corresponding
polarities will be induced in all of the
other windings. This induced voltage in
winding 1 makes the base of A negative
with respect to its emitter, and A conducts
with very little voltage drop between the
emi tter and collector. The vol tage induced in winding 4 is positive at the top
and thus holds transistor B cutoff, since
its base is positive with respect to both
the emitter and collector. Transistor A
continues to conduct until the flux reaches
the saturation value +cf>m.
Upon saturation, several effects occur
simultaneously; the current rises sharply
to a value determined by the base drive
of the transistor, the induced voltage in
the transformer windings disappears, and
the voltage across the transistor rises.
The loss of the base drive causes transistor
A to open the circuit to winding 2 and
causes the flux to fall back slightly to the
retentivity value which induces a small
vol tage of the opposite polarity in the
windings. This places a negative voltage
on the base of the transistor B which begins to conduct, causing the flux to decrease still further, and the cycle is
rapidly reversed until transistor B is
conducting heavily and transistor A is
open. The input voltage is now connected across winding 3, positive at the
bottom and negative at the top. The
flux decreases linearly until the core saturates in the opposite direction and a
similar reversal takes place to complete
the cycle.
The output voltage is a square wave
where the duration of each half-cycle is

en

~ -25...------P~--+---+----;

>

C) -20H----+---+-~--------4

....-J

(B)

o
> -15........

---+---+----j1+--~~_+_---r----r--___,r_-__r--_._1

a::
~

Fig. 1. (A) Collector characteristics of PNP

transistor.
(B)
Common emitter
connection showing load circuit

~ -t0N---+---+----I1+----I+-~:-t-t----+--=-=--t----r---r-1
-J
-J

o
o

(A)
-511-----+---J----I4----++-----+f--~~-+-I~~---_+_I

-20

-40

-80

-100

COLLECTOR CURRENT

Royer-Switching Transistor D-C to A-C Converter

(rno)

R
JULY

1955

Fig. 2 <left).

Basic cir-

cuit of voltage.;to-fre-

quency converter

+
5

--+

OUTPUT

OUTPUT

Fig. 4 (right).
. Bias
circuit added to increase
voltage range of the
basic converter

determined by the time necessary for the

flux in the core to change from -cf>m to
+m. The frequency of these square
waves can be related to the parameters of
the core and the input voltage. If N 2
designates the number of turns on each
one of the two main windings 2 and 3
and the voltage drop across the transistors
and winding resistance is assumed to be
negligible, the input voltage V in is applied directly across a winding of N 2
turns
dcP

V'ill =N,,~ dt

Integrating this relation over one halfcycle

Therefore

f=~
4N2cPm

From this expression it is evident that,

for a given transformer, the output frequency is proportional to the d-e input
voltage. Such a characteristic is well
suited for telemetering applications where
the output frequency transmitted between
a measuring point and a metering station
is an indication of a voltage measurand
at the originating point. As the transistors are used as switches or on-off devices, and their conduction resistance is
only a few ohms, their characteristics do
not rnaterially affect the proportionality.
The saturation flux of Hipernik V changes
about 0.07 per cent per degree centigrade and, thus, the constant of proportionality will vary correspondingly with
temperature.

Bias Cireui t

1955

To insure good switching operation, the

minimum voltage at the transistor bases
should be about 1 volt. If a 20-to-1
operating range is desired, the voltage inJULY

duced would be 20 volts at the upper end

of the range. The switching current in
the bases would vary over a much greater
than 20-to-1 range because of the nonlinear characteristic of the emitter-base
diode. Consequently, excessive heating
or burn-out of the transistor could occur
at high currents and, if the range were
extended at the low end, improper or no
switching would occur at low currents.
To maintain a more satisfactory base
drive over a wide range of input voltages,
a current bias may be used in the base
circuit, as shown in Fig. 4. To explain the
operation of this circuit, E b ia s is assumed
to be much greater than the voltages induced in windings 1 or 4, so that the bias
circuit effectively acts as a constant-current source of magnitude Ebiasl R b ia s .
It is also assumed that, initially, all of
this bias current is flowing through the
base of transistor A. A then conducts
and connects the source Vin to winding 2
which thereby induces voltages of the
polarities shown in 1 and 4 and, e.g., with
a magnitude of perhaps 1 volt. The voltage applied to the base of transistor B

Fig. 3.

Typical cP-i curve for square hysteresis

loop core material

VbB , is equal to the sum of the voltages

induced in windings 1 and 4 minus the
base voltage of A, VbA A typical value
for the drop across the conducting transistor A might be 1/2 volt so that the
value of VbB , in this example, would be
V bB=1+1-0.5=1.5, with the base positive with respect to the emitter and,
hence, the base of B is cutoff and the entire bias current must be flowing through
A as was originally postulated. The
values of the voltage drop V bA and the
voltage induced in winding 1 have practically no effect on the magnitude of the
bias current I b ia s since it was assumed that
E b ia s was large. Strictly speaking, I b ia s =
(E b ia s + VI- B bA ) I R b ia s Thus, in this circuit, the function of the voltages induced
in the switching windings is not primarily
for producing a current in the base circuit but rather for furnishing a cutoff bias
for one or the other of the transistors.
But, for this slight change of concept, the
over-all circuit operation is identical with
that already described. By using this
bias circuit with a sufficiently high bias
battery, the bias drive can thus be held
relatively constant if desired, and this
factor is no longer a limitation on the
upper value of supply voltage Vino
Rather, the upper limit on the input voltage is set by the collector voltage that
can be applied to the nonconducting transistor. Since the induced voltage in the
transformer adds to the input supply voltage, the rated collector breakdown voltages must be at least twice the input voltage. In addition, the applied voltage
must not cause thermal runaway of the
nonconducting transistor at elevated temperatures.
The low limit of Vi n is set by the fact
that, in order for transistor B to be completely cut off, the voltage V bB must be at
least 1/10th volt and, therefore, in this
example, the sum of the voltage induced
in windings 1 and 4 must be at least
l/lOth volt higher than the forward drop
of transistor A, VbA . Thus, the greater
the turns ratio NIlN 2 , the lower the volt-

Royer-Switching Transistor D-C to A -C Converter

323

1
INPUT TO INTEGRATOR

OUTPUT OF INTEGRATOR

Fig. 5.

Voltage wave forms using the converter as an integrator .

age limitation on Vin If NIlN 2 is made

too large, the base current referred to
winding 2 may be greater than the maximum saturation current, and there will be
nothing left over to magnetize the core so
that this lower limit cannot be extended
indefinitely. As the switching voltage
becomes too low to saturate the transistors properly, they can no longer supply
the magnetization current for the transformer. Under these conditions, the
operation takes place along a minor hysteresis loop. Thus instead of acting as a
saturating core, it behaves as a linear inductance in parallel with its distributed
capacity. The device then changes its
mode of oscillation and operates as a
quasi-linear oscillator whose frequency
increases as the input voltage decreases.
Two precautions must therefore be observed if this device is to be used for instrumentation purposes: The input voltage must not change sign and, furthermore, it should not fall below the critical
value at which the mode of oscillation
changes. Input voltages of as low as 100
millivolts and up to 40 volts have been
applied and, by the proper choice of cores,
and number of turns on windings 2 and
3, converters have operated at frequencies
from one half-cycle per second up to 12
kilocycles.
Since the transistors are operating as
switching devices, they will operate over

a wide ambient temperature range; the

. circuit shown has been operated from
- 60 to +40 degrees centigrade, and to
+75 degrees centigrade with selected
transistors. Some laboratory models of
this converter have operated over an input voltage range of 100 to 1. For a constant core temperature, converters of this
configuration have been operated over a
20-to-1 range with a frequency output
proportional to the input voltage to
within a deviation of only 0.2 per cent of
full-range frequency.

Applications

output polarity each time the volt-second

area under the input curve from the time
of the previous reversal reaches the value
necessary to move the core flux from one
saturation point to the other. The output voltage follows the same wave shape
as the input, except that each output pulse
has the same volt-second area and every
other pulse is the mirror image of the input.
Rewriting Vin = N(d/dt) and integrating over a complete .half-cycle of flux
change
Vindt=N

cPm

cPm

The circuit described in the previous

section is accurate enough to warrant application of the device as a telemetering
transmitter. The output square wave can
be transmitted directly, or filtered, if
elimination of the higher harmonics is desired. While the converter may be loaded
to deliver as much as 1 watt of output
power, the voltage-to-frequency linearity
is sacrificed so that an output buffer
stage may be necessary to maintain the
0.2-per-cent accuracy. A further advantage of a buffer stage would be that
it could act as a clipper, giving a constant
output magnitude over the operating
range instead of one which varied with the
frequency. This output can be transmitted over any desired link to an indicating station giving a representation of
the voltage measured Vi n
It was stated that the saturation flux
of Hipemik V changes about 0.07 per cent
per degree centigrade and that this would
vary the constant of proportionality in
f = K Vi n If the core were enclosed in a
constant temperature box held to a variation of 2.5 degrees centigrade, the proportionalitywouldchange byonly0.2 per
cent. This temperature limit should not
be difficult to obtain in a small, inexpensive oven.
If a unidirectional input voltage wave
form, shown in Fig. 5, is applied to the
input terminals, the unit will reverse the

d4J= 2N4Jm

Thus, twice the number of turns times

m determines the volt-second area of the

input which is required for 'each output

pulse. This is then an analogue-to-digital
converter in that the digital output
(number of pulses) is the representation
of the analogue input (integral of the applied unidirectional voltage). A count of
the number of output pulses during a
fixed time period would give the integral
of the applied voltage over that time.

Conclusions
In this paper a simple and reliable circuit has been illustrated to convert direct
to alternating current. Several of its applications-precision telemetering and integrating-have been described. Little
or no effect on the operation is noted
when transistors are replaced or are interchanged. It was emphasized that
junction transistors used as switches
make useful circuit components which
will operate over widely varying ambient
conditions.

References
1. FUTURE ApPLICATION OF
CONTROL MACHINE TOOLS,

TRANSISTORS

R.

Louis

TO

Bright.

Proceedings, 18th Annual Machine Tool Electrification Forum, Buffalo, New York, Apr. 1954.
2. JUNCTION TRANSISTORS USED AS SWITCHBS,
R.Louis Bright. AlEE Transactions, vol. 74, pt. I,
Mar. 1955, pp. 111-21.

Discussion
George C. Uchrin (Signal Corps Engineering
Laboratories, Fort Monmouth, N. J.): A
circuit similar to the one described in the
paper was devised in January 1954 by W. O.
Taylor and the writer." The basic circuit
and mode of operation are the same. It was
found that grounded base as well as
grounded emitter could be used. I twas
also found that almost any type of core
material could be used and still obtain good
wave form.

324

The interest of the Laboratories in this

circuit is its use in low-voltage to high-voltage d-e transformation for the operation of
various .types of communications equipment. Power converters have been built
which were capable of delivering approximately 60 watts output from a 24-volt d-e
source.
REFERENCE

1. A NEW SELF-EXCITED SQUARE-WAVE TRANSISTOR POWER OSCILLATOR, George C. Uchrin,

Wilfred O. Taylor. Proceedings, Institute of Radio

Engineers, New York, N. Y., vol. 43, Jan. 1955
p.99.

A. G. Milnes (Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pa.): The switching

transistor oscillator described by Dr. Royer
is of considerable interest as a supply source
for the operation of magnetic-amplifier
equipment. The efficiency is high,. the
source impedance is suitably low, and the
reliability is likely to be good when highpower conservatively rated .transistors are
available. Such converters may therefore
tend to replace rotating electric machines
supplying small amounts of 400-cycle-persecond power in various military applications.

Royer-Switching Transistor D-C to A-C Converter

JULY

1955

Fig. 6. Arrangement
of switching-transistor
oscillators
IA

2.
2B

If magnetic-amplifier equipments are supplied from independent transistor oscillators

it is probable that design frequencies will
increase since performance for a given weight
is thereby improved. This is true up to at
least 2,400 cycles per second, which happens
to be a frequency for which appreciable
experience has been gained in \ magneticamplifier design and in the operation of
associated apparatus such as motors, gyros,
and torque relays.
Two switching-transistor oscillators of
the same frequency can be interlinked so as
to provide outputs which differ in phase by
90 degrees in a prescribed sequence. One
possible arrangement is shown in Fig. 6.
The transistor oscillators 1 and 2 are of the
general type considered by Dr. Royer and
may be operated from the same d-e source
although for clarity in the diagram two
separate batteries are shown. The capacitors across transistors I B and 2B are not
concerned with phase locking but may be
desirable in the basic circuits to suppress
abnormal high-frequency oscillations when
the circuits are first energized. The phaselocking circuits are those containing the
saturable reactors L 1 and L z and the rectifier
bridges which apply voltages to the resistors
R 1 and R 2 I t will be seen that the L 1 , R 1
circuit is energized by the sum of the oscillator voltages and the L 2 , R z circuit by the
difference of the voltages.
If the output voltages have a phase difference of exactly 90 degrees, the sum and
difference wave forms have pulses of the
same mean voltage-time area. The reactors L 1 and L z are designed so that the full
nonsaturating flux changes occur in them for
this condition and so no appreciable voltages appear across R 1 and R I If the phase
difference between VI and V2 is, however,
e.g., less than 90 degrees ( V2 lagging on VI),
the pulse width of VI V2 exceeds the
saturation pulse width of L I and a residual
pulse appears across R I . This voltage
switches off transistor lA and so causes reversal of oscillator 1 earlier than normal and
therefore increases the phase difference towards. the required 90-degree value. If
the phase lag exceeds 90 degrees the correction is provided by the phase-locking circuit
L2, R 2 acting on oscillator 2. Theoretically

the possibility exists of no correcting action

being obtained if the phase displacement of
two oscillators is exactly 180 degrees different from that required, but in practice
the oscillators have sufficient slip to ensure
that this condition is unstable and presents
no difficulty.
A rather similar circuit has been devised
in which corrective action is applied to both
transistors of the two oscillators and is now
under examination. This uses no more components than the circuit illustrated although
more windings are required.
The necessary saturation flux swings or
voltage-time ratings of reactors L I and L z are
solely related to the rating of the main cores
and so the phase-locking action is not disturbed by change in the input voltage to the
system. If the voltage-time rating of reactor L I is made half of that of L 2 (with the
total absorption of L I and L 2 adjusted to
match the main core), the phase lag obtained is 120 degrees. In this way with
three oscillators it is possible to produce a
3-phase supply system. The prospect of
obtaining 2-phase and 3-phase systems from

1955

G. H. Royer: Many different types of applications may be made of the basic d-e
to a-c converter described in this paper.
Mr. Uchrin's application was in the field of
d-e power supply circuitry where a lowvoltage direct current is converted to a
square-wave alternating current transformed to a high-voltage level and rectified,
yielding a good high-voltage d-e source requiring very little filtering because the rectified square wave has practically no ripple.
In such an application the only requirements are that the output voltage wave form
be square to reduce the filtering required,
and that the regulation of the transformer
be good in order to maintain good voltage
regulation. However, Prof. Milnes' .discussion relates to the use of the device to
supply a-c power to a magnetic amplifier
or other a-c load, thus eliminating the necessity of operating at a frequency fixed by the
available line power. In suchan application it is desirable to maintain the output
frequency constant under varying loading
conditions.
The use of ordinary transformer steel as
suggested by Mr. Uchrin has the obvious
advantage that it is less expensive than
square-loop material; however, it would
not be satisfactory in Prof. Milnes' application because when such steel is used the frequency shifts considerably with a change in
load. To illustrate the reason for this behavior, consider the operation of a circuit
similar to that shown in Fig. 2 combining
transistors and ordinary transformer steel.
For a fixed input voltage Vin the base drive
voltage to transistor A will be Vin(NI / N 2 ) .
The characteristic of transistor A is such
that it will have a very low voltage drop
as the current increases up the value Ix
determined by the transistor current gain.
Beyond this current the transistor voltage
drop increases sharply for little further increase in current. A typical normal </>-i

:~Jl5z =======--=--=--=--=--=s>:
I
z
I

I
I

I
I
I
!

I
I

X
:::J

....J
LL

I
I

W
0::

JULY

the oscillators increases their attractiveness

as supply sources.

I
I
I
I

I
I
I
I

I
I
I
I
I
I

I
I
I
I

I
I

Fig. 7.
Normal </>-i
curve for transformer
steel

I
I

lz
iy
ix
MAGNETIZING CURRENT i ---+

Royer-Switching Transistor D-C to A-C Converter

325

curve for transformer steel is shown in Fig. 7.

As the input voltage is applied to winding 2,
the flux increases linearly until it reaches
cPx corresponding to the point at which the
magnetizing current is equal to Ix. Here
the voltage drop across the transistors increases rapidly, the voltage across the
transformer falls, the induced base voltage
falls, and the current in the transistor is reduced from Ix toward zero in the same
manner as described in the paper. The
sharp wave form is determined by the
sharp current limitation and voltage increase of the transistor at the current Ix.
Any output load current will be reflected
back into winding 2 and, will be a part of
this total transistor current Ix. Thus only
the difference between the reflected load
current and the transistor maximum current
Ix will be available to magnetize the core,

and switching will occur at some lower

value of current and flux (1 11 , cPy). A further increase in load current will result in a
still lower magnetizing component (Iz, cPz).
It is evident from the frequency governing
expressionf= V in/(4N</Jm) that this decrease
in the flux swing will cause the output frequency to increase. The use of core materials with a flat top makes the total flux
swing 2</Jm much more nearly constant over
a wide range of loading conditions. Hence
in applications where a constant output
frequency is required, or where it is desired
to maintain a direct proportionality between
the output frequency and the input voltage,
it. is necessary to use square hysteresis loop
core material.
The circuitry offered by Prof. Milnes
should provide a useful addition to the a-c
power supply discussed in this paper. The

Magnetic-Amplifier Control of D-C

Motors
A. KUSKO
MEMBER AlEE

LT H OUGH considerable work has

been done on the operation of adjustable-speed d-e motors with armature
power supplied by thyratrons- and by
metallic rectifiers controlled with adjustable transformers.v" there is little information available on the use of magnetic
amplifiers for this purpose. For this
reason, an analytical and experimental
study was made of the steady-state operation of a d-e motor with armature power
supplied through metallic rectifiers and
controlled by saturable reactors or magnetic amplifiers. More specifically, the
speed-torque characteristics of the motor
were determined for the various control
methods and, in particular, the effectiveness of simple feedback connections and
the use of external armature-circuit inductance was ascertained in improving
the speed regulation.
This study has shown that, where the
armature power for a d-e motor is being
Paper 55-60, recommended by the AlEE Magnetic
Amplifiers Committee and approved by the AlEE
Committee on Technical Operations for presentation at the AlEE Winter General Meeting, New
York, N. Y., January 3I-February 4,1955. Manuscript submitted October 7, 1954; made available
for printing December 3, 1954.
A. KUSKO is with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and J. G. NELSON
is with the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company, Minneapolis, Minn.
The work described in this paper was initiated on
a consulting basis for the Hevi Duty Electric Company, Milwaukee, Wis., and was completed by Mr.
Nelson as a thesis in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the degree of Master of Science
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

326

J. G. NELSON
NONMEMBER AlEE

supplied by metallic rectifiers, adequate

speed regulation and control can be obtained by the use of magnetic amplifiers
with simple feedback circuits. This is
particularly true where the motor speed
must be adjusted remotely or by the resultant of two or more control signals.
Moreover, the speed-torque characteristics of the motor and the design parameters of the auxiliary apparatus are relatively straightforward to predict.

Nomenclature
a=Eg/Vm=ratio of armature generated

voltage to peak line voltage

Eg=average armature generated voltage
i A = instantaneous armature current
i L = instantaneous line current
i a , iI, ill = instantaneous currents as defined in Fig. 14
If = average motor field current
leNc = saturable-reactor
control-winding
ampere-turns per core, average
I LNL = saturable-reactor
load-winding
ampere-turns per core, average
KT=torque constant of the motor, torque
per unit armature current
K N = speed constant of the motor, generated
volts per unit speed
LA = armature-circuit inductance
N I , Nit = load-winding turns on magneticamplifier cores I and II
R A = armature-circuit resistance
RR = forward resistance of each rectifier
branch
R r, Rn = resistance sum of one magneticamplifier load winding and one
rectifier branch
T=internal torque of the motor
v l = instantaneous line voltage

2-phase circuit shown indicates a direction

of approach toward multiple-phase converters which could supply a-c power to drive
magnetic amplifiers, a-c motors, or other
loads directly. It is believed that the increased availability of transistors with
large power handling capacity will see further applications of such devices.
Regarding Mr. Uchrirr's referenced article, his attention is directed to a 1954
AlEE Summer General Meeting conference
paper with the same title and substance as
the present paper, and to an article by
Bright, Pittman, and Royer in December
1954. 1
REFERENCE

1. TRANSISTORS AS ON-OFF SWITCHES IN SATULouis Bright, C. F. Pitman, Jr., George H. Royer. Electrical Manufacturing, New York, N. Y., Dec. 1954.
RABLE-CORE CIRCUITS, R~

instantaneous
armature
terminal
voltage
V m = peak value of the line voltage
XI, X 2 , X 3t X 4 = branches of the bridge
rectifier
a = firing angle at which core I saturates
al = angle at which core I begins to absorb
voltage
a2 = angle at which rectifier X a begins to
conduct
a3 = angle at which the load-winding current
i r becomes zero
ep=flux reset on the magnetic-amplifier
cores
wL-A = tmpe
d ance angle of the

0= tan - 1 RA
armature circuit

VA =

Analysis
The system to be considered consists of
a d-e motor with constant field current, a
full-wave metallic rectifier for supplying
the armature power, and a saturable magnetic device for controlling the armature
voltage. With respect to this system the
purpose of this section is to review briefly
the effect of armature-circuit inductance
on the continuity of the armature current,
to show what characteristics can be anticipated from control by saturable magnetic devices, and to indicate how the

Fig.

1. D-c motor with armature power

supplied by a full-wave rectifier

Kusko, Nelson-Magnetic-Amplifier Control of D-C Motors

JULY

1955