BOILER FEEDERS

Injectors have a dangerous rival in the Moore Steam Pump or boiler feeder for traction engines, and the reason this little pump is not in more general use is the fact that among the oldest methods for feeding a boiler is the independent steam pump and they were always unsatisfactory from the fact that they were a steam engine within themselves, having a crank or disc, flywheel, eccentric, eccentric yoke, valve, valve stem, crosshead, slides, and all the reciprocating parts of a complete engine.  Being necessarily very small, these parts of course are very frail and delicate, were easily broken or damaged by the rough usage to which they were subjected while bumping around over rough roads on a traction engine.  The Moore Pump, manufactured by The Union Steam Pump Company, of Battle Creek, Mich., is a complete departure from the old steam engine pump, and if you take any interest in any of the novel ways in which steam can be utilized send to them for a circular and sectional cuts and you can spend several hours very profitably in determining just how the direct pressure from the boiler can be made to drive the piston head the full stroke of cylinder, open exhaust port, shift the valve open steam port and drive the piston back again and repeat the operation as long as the boiler pressure is allowed to reach the pump and yet have no connection whatever with any of the reciprocating parts of the pump, and at the same time lift and force water into the boiler in any quantity desired.

Another novel feature in this “little boiler feeder” is that after the steam has acted on the cylinder it can be exhausted directly into the feed water, thus utilizing all its heat to warm the water before entering the boiler.  Now it required a certain number of heat units to produce this steam which after doing its work gives back all its heat again to the feed water and it would be a very interesting problem for some of the young engineers, as well as the old ones, to determine just what loss if any is sustained in this manner of supplying a boiler.  If you are thinking of trying an independent pump, don’t be afraid of this one.  I take particular pride in recommending anything that I have tried myself, and know to be as recommended.

And a boiler feeder of this kind has all the advantage of the injector, as it will supply the boiler without running the engine, and it has the advantage over the injector, in not being so delicate, and will work water that can not be handled by the best of injectors.

We have very frequently had this question put to us:  “Ought I to grease my gearing?” If I said “yes,” I had an argument on my hands at once.  If I said “no,” some one would disagree just as quickly, and how shall I answer it to the satisfaction of most engineers of a traction engine?