Vintage electrical lab instruments are amazing.

So I’ve been acquiring and playing with 50-100 year old electrical lab instruments.

My latest is a reed-type frequency meter, I didn’t even know these things existed. Great admiration for the people who originally designed these things, a very clever little design. We tried a brief experiment to get it running today, but no response. We may not have been applying enough voltage, the wires in these things could probably handle 50+ amps.

I’ve also got this potentiometer, utterly crazy looking, and with controls and labels that are a mystery to me – terminals labeled E+ and E-, H and H1, L and L1, BA+, R, and a couple others. A big wonking selector switch that looks like it could transmit 50 amps, and a fine tuning gauge. I’ll be putting an ohmmeter on this thing to see what the hell is going on.

I’ve also got some more awesome potentiometers and voltmeters. As well as a variable capacitor. These things were built for the ages – massive wires, plenty of ventilation, solid wood and metal and bakelite construction. They are all amazingly beautiful.

I’m working to bond an arduino to some of these so I can use them for more mundane modern purposes. But they look great just sitting on the shelf.