The fan shape of this meter is typical of early 20th-century meters, a streamlined change from the heavy cylindrical castings found on older meters. It mounts to a panel using the terminal studs, typical of most such "surface-mount" meters -- and insulating bushings, if the panel is metal. This one is missing a bushing at the (metal) case on one post; I can probably come up with something.
A nice application for a meter like this would be in a 1930's economy-type ham transmitter, where one meter does the work of several with meter jacks in the plate and grid connections and a long cable and plug connected to the meter. Just add suitable shunts at the meter jacks and voila! No fussing around wiring the grid-current jacks backwards, either.
I've got a couple of those myself, somewhere out in the garage.
ReplyDeleteMy pride and joy for those id a G.E. Voltmeter in a beautiful wood box, with all the calibration data.
It was made in the late 1920's, and is still within 2% of full scale.
A motor repair shop I used to do business with back in Illinois was THROWING IT AWAY!
Needless to say, I rescued it from the dumpster. After a good cleaning, and some furniture polish on the wood cabinet, it looked like new.
For peaking a signal, give me an analog movement any day. We use center zero meters at work to calibrate our analog transducers. Buck the UUT's current output against the test standard's output and apply it to the meter, and tweak for zero. A decent tech with that setup is still faster than the computerized systems we've developed.
ReplyDeleteOne of the neat things about working in the power industry is seeing hardware from the Good Old Days. I was visiting a customer's site a few years ago and they had a bunch of old volt, amp, and watthour meters in a display case in the lobby. Lots of Weston movements in the volt and amp meters.
Hmm this reminds me. I have an old voltmeter I want to give you. Made by the Sensitive Research Instrument Corporation of New Rochelle, NY, it is a Dynamometer Voltmeter, Model D, serial no. 914985, standardized by one L. Miller on 9/16/1959...not particularly long before I were hatched.
ReplyDeleteI'll send you some pictures.
Meters:
ReplyDeleteI have a WWII generator set (Model M5, for those who care) that has Triplett volt and amp meters; I display it at some antique engine/tractor shows. At one, a fella was walking along with an elderly woman on his arm, and when he observed the genset, he said, "Look, Ma, Triplett meters!" Turned out that she worked at the factory in Bryan, OH during the War. She then related how her sister was sent to New York to learn how to work with the jeweled bearings in the meters.
DaveH,
I've seen lots of those power meters in various places, we have some in our power building at Buckley, MI. But, I've never seen one of those antique power systems running at full-tilt. Darn!