The
first Automotive Electrical Starter
Before
the advent of the starter motor, engines were started by various
methods including wind-up springs, gunpowder cylinders, and
human-powered techniques such as a removable crank handle which
engaged the front of the crankshaft, pulling on an airplane
propeller, or pulling a cord that was wound around an open-face
pulley.
The
hand-crank was the most commonly used method to start engines, but it
was inconvenient, difficult, and dangerous. The behavior of an engine
during starting is not always predictable. Even though cranks had an
overrun mechanism, when the engine started, the crank could begin to
spin along with the crankshaft and potentially strike the person
cranking the engine. Additionally, care had to be taken to retard
the spark in order to prevent backfiring; causing the engine to run
in a reverse direction, pulling the crank with it, because the
overrun safety mechanism works in one direction only.
Users
were also advised to cup their fingers and thumb under the crank and
pull up. However operators would more often grasp the handle with
the fingers on one side, the thumb on the other. Thus even a simple
backfire could result in a broken thumb; a broken wrist; or a
dislocated shoulder.
The
first electric starter was installed on an Arnold, an adaptation of
the Benz Velo, built in 1896 in East Peckham, England, by electrical
engineer H. J. Dowsing. In 1903, Clyde J. Coleman invented and
patented the first electric starter in America U.S. Patent 0,745,157.
Both designs proved to be unsatisfactory.
In
1911, Charles F. Kettering, with Henry M. Leland, of Dayton
Engineering Laboratories Company
(DELCO), invented and filed U.S. Patent 1,150,523 for an electric
starter. (Kettering had replaced the hand crank on NCR's cash
registers with an electric motor five years earlier.) One aspect of
the invention lay in the realization that a relatively small motor,
driven with higher voltage and current could be feasible, for a short
time of operation, would deliver enough power to crank the engine for
starting.
This
starter design was first installed by Cadillac on production models
in 1912. The starter also worked as generators once the engine was
running. Cadillac’s implementation of the electric starter motor
as standard equipment on the 1912 Model 30, made it possible to turn
over an automobile engine without fear of getting TKO’d by the hand
crank in the event of backfire or kickback.
In
fact, the danger of starting a car engine by hand is what spurred
Cadillac to adopt electric starters in the first place. In the
winter of 1908, a woman stalled her Cadillac in Belle Island,
Michigan, and didn’t have the strength to crank the car over. Another driver, Byron Carter (founder of CarterCar) happened along
and offered to start the stalled Cadillac. Carter was also a friend
of Cadillac founder Henry Leland. When Carter turned the stalled
Cadillac’s crank, the engine reportedly backfired, the crank hit
him in the face and broke his jaw. Tragically, gangrene set in, and
Carter died later that year. Carter’s death allegedly made Leland
decide that Cadillac would rid its cars of the hand starter crank. So
he called on Charles Kettering and Dayton Engineering Laboratories
Co. DELCO had already developed a high-energy spark ignition for
Cadillac that had debuted in 1910.
Kettering
wasn’t totally in the dark when he started the project. He had the
idea for a self-starter before Leland approached him. The issue with
electricity was size. The battery and starter each had to fit in a
car. If an electric motor had enough torque for the initial burst of
power to start up an engine, the motor likely would be bigger than
the engine itself. Kettering knew he would have to shrink whatever
device he came up with. On Christmas Eve 1910, Kettering’s test of
a battery and a starter finally worked. Yet, when a 1912 Cadillac
arrived at his lab in Dayton, Ohio, Kettering’s starter wouldn’t
fit. So once again, Kettering had to make the invention smaller. He
also faced a deadline imposed by Leland on Feb. 10, 1911: If the
project wasn’t done before Leland left for Bermuda in one week, the
plug would be pulled on the self-starter. In the end, Kettering and
his staff got the job done. Kettering personally drove the car with
the self-starter to a train station, where it would be shipped to
Detroit, reportedly stopping and starting nearly every block on the
way to make sure it worked. Leland was pleased with the product and
ordered 12,000 units. Customers were immediately drawn to the new
way to start a car. Cadillac was awarded the 1912 Dewar Trophy from
the Royal Automobile Club of England for the starter and ignition.