The Universal Motor has exposed commutator bars and adjustable brushes to allow students to study the effect of armature reactions and commutation while the machine is running under load. The armature winding, the series field winding, and the compensation winding are terminated independently. Students can observe the effects of both inductive and conductive compensation on motor speed and torque for both ac and dc input voltage sources.

The motor is supplied with a silk-screened faceplate showing the motor connections and a twelve-pin connector to fit with the Motor Terminal Module, Model 3171-2.