The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The governor of my Columbia model 140 portable gramophone has an extra bit that seems unnecessary to me, and even detrimental to good speed control.
There is a collar with a spring steel tab attached to the governor shaft with a set screw. The spring steel tab presses against the brass shaft of the governor disc, which, to my thinking, is not a good thing. In my experience, the disc shaft should slide absolutely freely on the governor shaft in order to prevent speed variations, but this little tab imparts a certain amount of drag on the disc shaft and in fact, the speed does vary a bit.
I have seen no other governor with this feature.
I will put it back together sans collar and spring tab just to see how it performs.
Anyone have an idea of why this governor was designed this way?
Tom

Interesting. I'm guessing it was possibly meant to dampen fluctuations in governor response. It may tend to compensate somewhat for any imbalances within the governor or friction disc, making the governor less responsive to those inaccuracies and faults. In other words, it may reduce the flutter we sometimes see when governors are in less than optimal condition.

Good thinking, Jerry

Is it possible that collar may be a limiter to prevent the motor from overspeeding?

It looks as though the leaf spring on that collar is broken and you may have only part of it left on the collar. It may of had a curve in it and acted as what howardpgh described as a overspeed limiter.

That wouldn't prevent overspeeding as it wouldn't allow the weights to do their job in moving the friction disc.