Manhatten Electric Supply Company (MESCO) made three
versions of their patent Electric Engine. The 1011 with a
3½" flywheel, the 1012 with a 2 5/8" flywheel and the 1013 with
a 2" flywheel. This is the largest version. Charles E.
Avery was granted patnet 958354 on May 17, 1910 and it was assigned to
Manhatten Electric Supply Co.
New In Box doesn's seem correct but this electric engine comes very
close. Excellent condition, instruction sheet included.
Powered up and ran right out of the box, although I did apply a tiny
amount of oil.
Operation
Instructions call for one or more No. 6 Dry Cells
connected in series. I tried using an Agilent E3617A bench power
supply rated at 0 - 60 Volts, 0 - 1 Amp, but it was too weak. A
single No. 6 Dry Cell turns over the engine and two of them make it run
well. The instruction sheet shows three cells which would really
put out some power.
The crank has two throws, one for the connecting rod and one that acts
as part of the switch and they are 90 degrees apart. If by chance
the contact throw is pointing up or down working the control lever will
do noghting and you need to spin the wheel by hand to get it
going. This is the same for a single cylinder steam engine.
But if the contact throw is close to either the forward or reverse
contact then moving the lever so contact is made will start the engine
without the need to manual starting. This is similar to the "Starting from the Switch" procedure on cars that had manual ignition advance retard controls, like Rolls Royce cars from the 1920s or 1930s.
The lever not only allow for stopping, forward or reverse selection but also acts as a variable speed control. Since
<>Google Video of Electric Motor Running (link to the video)
