[Swansea Hackspace] Valve radio signal generator, 1940s

[Alex Duffield]

I belive it sat in standing water for a while judging by the tide line lol,
revealing the lot would be a must and the resistors are probably shot, the
transformers are above the tide line mostly, my hope is the valves are okay
and other than that get it running or strip it out as a pc case lol

On 6 Jan 2018 7:04 p.m., "Ceri Clatworthy" <ceri.clatworthy at gmail.com>
wrote:

> that's some old and crusty  coating on all the parts.....
>
> would not trust the insulation on the transformer ....
>
> 50 to 80 volts ...
>
> On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Davies T. <t.davies at swansea.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Dear Alex,
>>
>> Very interested to see the old Triplett generator. Looking at
>> the front panel, it covers from about 100 kHz to 120 MHz (whew!).
>>
>> A generator like this would most likely be used by an old-time
>> radio and TV repair man, as it covers medium, long and the
>> old VHF television frequencies. Or it could have been a piece of
>> test equipment in a college lab.
>>
>> Looking at the photos, I think that it has been exposed to rain
>> for a long period. The valves should be OK, as they are protected
>> by an impermeable envelope. Some of the other parts are very
>> dodgy, e.g. old electrolytic capacitors, they can just blow when
>> volts are applied. Also the transformers may need drying out, as
>> water may have penetrated the windings.
>>
>> Resistors and capacitors can be replaced, the valves are probably
>> OK, and anyway we have a whole load of contemporary valves
>> hidden away.
>>
>> Looking at the circuit, the big transformer is connected to a full-wave
>> rectifier, then the smoothed DC is regulated by a VR150-30, which is
>> a rare valve these days. It is a neon lamp, behaves like a high voltage
>> zener diode. There is a single valve in the oscillator, all the rest are
>> amplifiers and something to do with the modulation.
>>
>> An interesting feature is the CW Heterodyne mode, In the days before
>> oscilloscopes and frequency meters, you could measure an unknown
>> frequency by "beating" the oscillator with the unknown, and listen
>> (probably on headphones) for the descending beat frequency as you
>> approach the frequency.
>>
>> Good luck with this project, it is a lot of work in prospect.
>>
>> Timothy Davies
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* hackspace-bounces at swansea.hackspace.org.uk [
>> hackspace-bounces at swansea.hackspace.org.uk] on behalf of Alex Duffield [
>> alexmduffield at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 05 January 2018 22:43
>> *To:* Swansea Hackspace
>> *Subject:* [Swansea Hackspace] Valve radio signal generator, 1940s
>>
>> I have and will soon be bringing up a 1940s Triplett 1632 signal
>> generator, it's got all the valves don't know if they work (if I can't get
>> it working I plan to convert to steampunk pc case with the valves glowing
>> ect ect)I have the circuit diagram but alot of the solders are shot, it'll
>> need new capacitors and possibly resistors but the diagram has it all (yay)
>> I want to get it running but have no idea what I'd use it for lol I just
>> love valves lol, anyone might be able to help me out getting running
>> See attached imgur
>> Triplett 1632 signal generator https://imgur.com/gallery/GsJdz
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
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