What is "winding engine"

Winding \Wind"ing\, n.

1. A turn or turning; a bend; a curve; flexure; meander; as, the windings of a road or stream.

   To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove.
   --Milton.

2. The material, as wire or rope, wound or coiled about anything, or a single round or turn of the material; as (Elec.), a series winding, or one in which the armature coil, the field-magnet coil, and the external circuit form a continuous conductor; a shunt winding, or one of such a character that the armature current is divided, a portion of the current being led around the field-magnet coils.

   Winding engine, an engine employed in mining to draw up buckets from a deep pit; a hoisting engine.

   Winding sheet, a sheet in which a corpse is wound or wrapped.

   Winding tackle (Naut.), a tackle consisting of a fixed triple block, and a double or triple movable block, used for hoisting heavy articles in or out of a vessel.
   --Totten.

A winding engine is a stationary engine used to control a cable, for example to power a mining hoist at a pit head. Electric hoist controllers have replaced proper winding engines in modern mining, but use electric motors that are also traditionally referred to as winding engines.

Early winding engines were hand, or more usually horse powered.

The first powered winding engines were stationary steam engines. The demand for winding engines was one factor that drove James Watt to develop his rotative beam engine, with its ability to continuously turn a winding drum, rather than the early reciprocating beam engines that were only useful for working pumps.

They differ from most other stationary steam engines in that, like a steam locomotive, they need to be able to stop frequently and also reverse. This requires more complex valve gear and other controls than are needed on engines used in mills or to drive pumps.

Category:Mining equipment Category:Stationary engines