modified generator.

[Allan]

To what purpose might this modified T generator have been put?

Allan from down under.
There is a similar socket on the other side marked 230v ac.

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

My guess is that the internals of this unit are completlely different than anything used in a Model T. My further guess is that it's a "dynamotor", or basically a motor/generator. They're usually used to convert a DC input into an AC output of different voltage. A common device in the pre-solid state era.

It was probably handy for the manufacturer to use existing Model T generator housings.

[TXGOAT2]

I think Jerry is correct. "Dynamotors" of various types were often used to provide power for vacuum tube radio equipment. Vacuum tubes require both a low voltage power supply for the filament circuit and a high voltage DC power supply for the plate circuit. Lead/acid batteries can supply the low voltage, but are not practical for the higher voltage. The Dynamotor is typically a small low voltage DC motor driving a small AC higher voltage generator. The high voltage AC could be filtered and rectified to provide "clean" DC at the higher voltages required for the plate circuits in radio transmitters or receivers, or "transceivers". That unit may have been part of some kind of military field radio outfit. Dynamotors were also used in aircraft and military vehicles to operate radio equipment. Larger dynamotors were used for some industrial applications.

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

Larger dynamotors were used for some industrial applications.

Such as power sources for carbon arc movie projectors of the 20's/30's.

[varmint]

By the 1940s these D/C - A/C converters would be obsolete for radio use as vibrator tubes and transformers were used instead to power vacuum tubes. Then the vibrator tube became obsolete with the introduction of the transistor.

[JohnH]

From what I can see it's highly modified, into the form of a rotary converter to convert 32V DC into 230V AC. It would be for operating domestic AC appliances off a 32V lighting plant. The slip rings are a give away that AC is involved.