Recently I found my lost meters. l lost them when I move to this place in 2005 and I did it by carefully packing them away in a safe place. I didn't mark the box but I do that a lot. I have tried to be more careful but to no avail. I'm missing a lot of stuff. Someday I'll forget all that stuff then it won't be missing.Some of these work and some don't. It doesn't matter because I like to look at them. They represent something to me but I don't now what.
I do know something about this one. I don't remember where or when it came into my possession but it was more than 35 years ago. I have seen many like it in airplanes, boats and work trucks where knowing what was going on in the electrical system was crucial. There was one like it in the dash of my 1966 Ford 4 wheel drive pickup. I think I was at one time going to put this one into some truck or other that I was driving. I have used it as a test instrument to check current draw of various pieces of equipment that required a meter over 10 amps. For up to 10 amperes I have meter I purchased from Radio Shack for I think about 10 dollars in 1974 (it may have been earlier) that works very well. I've had to replace a few parts in it on several occasions due to misjudging what the circuit was likely to draw. It was easy to tell when I needed to do that by the column of smoke rising from the instrument. In those "Oh shit!" moments I should have used this meter. This is a DC meter and, for those who don't know, 60 amperes is a lot of current (big sparks, heat, fire, smoke, fire trucks). When this meter reaches the smoke indicator stage you don't want to touch anything connected to it unless you are into severe pain.The picture above is how it looked after I took it apart and shook out all the aluminum flakes and radium coating that was on the dial (oh my! radiation exposure). Although not as good as new it is serviceable. It just looks like I worked on it with a hammer and tongs.
I expect to be working with DC electric motors in the future when I get around to it and it will be useful.Now if I could just find some of the other missing items.
2 comments:
Love these and I can't explain why either which takes nothing away from them or me.
Technically I understand what these meters do and how to use them but that is not why I like them. Knowing that, they still stir something mysterious deeper in my core much like chancing on to a room full of clocks. Even after 45 years of flying I never lost the fascination of all those meters on the panel. Unlike clocks each one tells you a different story.
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