MTFCA Forum

I was offered a box of various T parts, and generally I say "No thanks" as I begin to think of my poor children that will have to clean up at some point.... but looking closely on the pictures something caught my eyes: Its made of bakelit I think, rather heavy with the usual 4 terminalsbut 8 areas inside the communitator!. The text on the house says among others "Constinous communitator". Not sure why this should be better - I have tried to look up the patents listed with no succes so far.
I can't see that Jake in California have one of these - maybe an european Model T auxilary part.

Not the first of this type with similar contacts I have seen. That design kept the softer insulator material from wearing faster than the actual contacts. Good design. Makes for a much longer service life.

Since a lot of commutators wear out in between the contacts, I’m guessing this one is designed to help mitigate that by having the rotor always be supported by metal. In other words, the “brush” is wide enough to span the gaps between the metal inserts and is therefore always supported by metal. Four inserts are contacts and the other four are longer-wearing dead zones. That’s just my guess.

I typed too slowly. Ha, what he said.

Looks like a roller type communicator that used some type of brush or roller. The New Day probably was cheaper to make than this type and the reason it’s still in use today as a repro. The one that’s pictured looks like it was a little more intricate to make. I wonder what the roller or brush looked like.

I'll take an educated guess... Because of the raised printing and in reference to the position connection for the control rod, I'd say this would be for a right hand drive Model T

Runbaken Magneto Co of Manchester.

If you search Runbaken in Google books, there are a lot of hits.

If you search Runbaken timer, it brings up the improved design which has four terminals in top.

If you search Runbaken commutator, this is what I found that gives the best description regarding the timer in question:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

Looks like two other variations besides the one you have - see top right on multi-product page
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