Slip ring :A slip ring (in electrical engineering terms) is a method of making an electrical connection through a rotating assembly.

Slip rings, also called rotary electrical interfaces, rotating electrical connectors, collectors, swivels, or electrical rotary joints, are commonly found in electric motors, electrical generators for AC systems and alternators and in packaging machinery, cable reels, and wind turbines. A slip ring is a rotary coupling used to transfer electric current from a stationary unit to a rotating unit. Either the brushes or the rings are stationary and the other component rotates. [1] [2] This system is similar to the brushes and commutator, found in many types of DC motors. While commutators are segmented, slip rings are continuous, and the terms are not interchangeable. Slip rings can also be used where electrical power or signals need to be transferred to a rotating device, such as an aerodrome beacon, rotating tank, power shovel, radio telescope or heliostat. Rotary transformers are often used instead of slip rings in high speed or low friction environments. Mercury-wetted slip rings, noted for their low resistance and stable connection use a different principle which replaces the sliding brush contact with a pool of liquid metal molecularly bonded to the contacts. During rotation the liquid metal maintains the electrical connection between the stationary and rotating contacts. However, the use of mercury poses safety concerns, as it is a toxic substance. If a slip ring application involves food manufacturing or processing, pharmaceutical equipment, or any other use where contamination could be a serious threat, the choice should be precious metal contacts. Leakage of the mercury and the resultant contamination could be extremely serious.[3] A slip ring can be used on any rotating object to transfer power, control circuits, or analog or digital signals including data
Slip ring motors:-

A slip ring motor or wound-rotor motor is a type of induction motor. The rotor windings are connected to a slip ring, connected to external resistances, which allows controlling the speed/torque characteristic of the motor. Wound-rotor motors can be started with low inrush current, by inserting high resistance into the rotor circuit; as the motor accelerates, the resistance can be decreased. [1] The rotor of the slip ring motor has more windings than a squirrel-cage rotor so that induction voltage is higher and the current for the same field strength lower. During the start-up a typical rotor has 3 poles connected to the slip ring. Each pole is wired in series with a variable power resistor. When the motor reaches full speed the rotor poles are switched to short circuit becoming a standard squirrel-cage motor. During start-up the resistors reduce the field strength in the stator. As a result the inrush current is reduced. Another important advantage over squirrel-cage motors is higher start-up torque.

A wound-rotor motor can be used in several forms of adjustable-speed drive. Today speed control by use of slip ring motor is mostly superseded by induction motors with variablefrequency drives. Doubly fed electric machines use the slip rings to supply external power to the rotor circuit, allowing wide-range speed control. Certain types of variable-speed drives recover slip-frequency power from the rotor circuit and feed it back to the supply, allowing wide speed range with high energy efficiency.

Slip:
Typical torque curve as a function of slip. The slip s is a ratio relative to the synchronous speed and is defined as

where nr is the rotor rotation speed in rpm.[9]