These overexcitation rectifiers are designed to increase the attractive force and reduce the attraction time of actuating solenoids, to shorten the coupling and disconnection times of clutches and brakes and to decrease the power consumption of clutches, brakes and actuating solenoids. To increase the attractive force, the solenoid is overexcited during the overexcitation time, applying bridge rectified voltage. Then the rectifier changes over to the selected holding voltage which must not exceed the rated voltage of the solenoid.