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Old 9th Jan 2019, 11:36 pm   #61
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

There were some ordinary size batteries sold for specific purposes, remember the "C" size clock battery? Here is an old PP3 that is allegedly a calculator battery.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-E...-/173702579854

Even in these modern times I've seen pairs of AAA NiMH cells labelled specifically for cordless phone handsets.

Just an excuse to charge a premium?
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Old 10th Jan 2019, 10:20 am   #62
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rambo1152 View Post
There were some ordinary size batteries sold for specific purposes, remember the "C" size clock battery?
I remember Halford's selling those in the 1970s. Ever Ready 'Transistor Clock Battery' they were called. A metallic yellowy colour. Years ago 'Which' magazine included them in their battery data but I can't remember how they differed from a regular C-cell. I don't think it was anything radical.

How I remember them so clearly is that for some reason, Halford's was the only shop in town that stocked them!
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Old 10th Jan 2019, 10:54 am   #63
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I haven't used the light switch I posted about in 2011 still sealed in original packaging. https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ght=ever+ready
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Old 10th Jan 2019, 1:51 pm   #64
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by emeritus View Post
https://cpc.farnell.com/univercell/d...-5v/dp/BT05682

"Univercell DB8014 Alkaline LR 40 cell battery", £11.78 + VAT, currently 5 in stock. I found it be googling " flag battery".

Evidently not LeClanche technology, but an alkaline substitute of the same dimensions.

PS post crossed with #55
Thanks for that link, had no idea that these still existed.
Rather a small capacity though, only 40 AH, that is the capacity of two D cells, which I suspect is what they contain.
Does anyone know what the capacity of the original flag cells was ? I suspect that it was over 100 AH.
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Old 10th Jan 2019, 3:01 pm   #65
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Thanks for the input. I'm a real fan of the company - even as a wee lad I was off to the Ever Ready shop to spend my pocket money.

Saturday mornings I used to take a batten holder and a 1.5 Volt battery and go up to the local shop and try out their bulbs. I was very hard to please. No off-center filaments, wonky beams or lopsided glass envelopes were allowed. They left me with packs of bulbs and half an hour later I chose one.

Just before my holidays I went to Woolworths to select a fresh No.8 battery for my bullseye torch.

I just bought a 1950's new old stock Ever Ready torch off eBay with reproduction U10 batteries. Was that anyone on here? Its a wonderful idea.
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Old 10th Jan 2019, 11:03 pm   #66
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Here are some Ever Ready Silver Seal batteries from my collection. The date at the bottom of both cells is 2002.
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Old 13th Jan 2019, 2:26 am   #67
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

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Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
Indeed: I've got a few "Eveready" branded AAA cells here - can't remember where they came rom, must have been in some bit of work-related gear I imported from the 'states in the last half-decade.

Their cat-jumping-through-the-digit-9 [implying 'nine lives'] logo is kinda iconic.
That cat logo was introduced in 1950--here's the first page of the catalog:
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Old 21st Jan 2019, 8:48 am   #68
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I use my Ever Ready Sky King daily, powered from its re-stuffed B103 battery. I’ve also got a pair of N and N3 attache case radios with re-stuffed and replica batteries.

A couple of other Ever Ready batteries that I’ve found inside old Avometers are the B121 15-volt, and the square section 1.5 volt cell with centre screw terminal and flying lead. I’ve got a re-stuffed one in a Model 7 somewhere but can’t remember the battery type number.

Years ago, I remember a rectangular 22.5 volt battery for instruments and camera flash guns, and maybe also used in the early hearing aids that used HiVac miniature valves. This battery had rounded corners. I think there were two sizes, one square in section, the other rectangular. Again, my memory fails me regarding the type numbers!
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Old 21st Jan 2019, 11:45 am   #69
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Just picked this up from eBay. Its an Ever Ready but made from an unusual hard black tar like substance with a momentary switch on the middle section and bulls eye lens. Anyone seen one like it before? What was it likely used for?
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Old 21st Jan 2019, 11:59 am   #70
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Usherette?
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Old 21st Jan 2019, 12:53 pm   #71
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil G4SPZ View Post

A couple of other Ever Ready batteries that I’ve found inside old Avometers are the B121 15-volt, and the square section 1.5 volt cell with centre screw terminal and flying lead. I’ve got a re-stuffed one in a Model 7 somewhere but can’t remember the battery type number.

Years ago, I remember a rectangular 22.5 volt battery for instruments and camera flash guns, and maybe also used in the early hearing aids that used HiVac miniature valves. This battery had rounded corners. I think there were two sizes, one square in section, the other rectangular. Again, my memory fails me regarding the type numbers!
I can help you there :
You know the B121.
There was a longer one, same cross section, 22.5V -- B122
And an even longer one (about twice the length of the B121) that was 30V -- B123

Then there was the smaller series, approximately square cross section, much the same lengths as the ones above :

15V -- B154
22.5V -- B155 (this was about the same size as an AA cell but square cross section. I've seen a hearing aid that took an AA cell for LT and a B155 for HT alongside each other)
30V -- B156 (did this exist from Ever Ready? Other manufacturers made it. One camera with built-in electronic flash took 8 of these in series to directly charge the flash capacitor).
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Old 21st Jan 2019, 1:29 pm   #72
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Re #64, the Vidor Industrial Battery catalogue for 1985 gives the capacity of the Leclanché Flag cell as 40Ah, the same as the current one.
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Old 21st Jan 2019, 4:28 pm   #73
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyDuell View Post
There was a longer one, same cross section, 22.5V -- B122
I've a B122 still doing duty in a Heathkit Tiger FM transistor portable, where it provides the required voltage for the varicap tuning system while a PP9 powers everything else.

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Old 24th Jan 2019, 12:28 am   #74
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emeritus View Post
Re #64, the Vidor Industrial Battery catalogue for 1985 gives the capacity of the Leclanché Flag cell as 40Ah, the same as the current one.
Cheers, thanks for that, I thought that it was much more than that.

Seems low for the size of the cell, remembering that a D cell of the same era was IIRC about 6 AH
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Old 30th Jan 2019, 9:11 pm   #75
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Ever Ready, brought back some memories for me. In 1969 I was on an electrical engineering apprentice first year at Dagenham works, quite a large factory. Lots of ladies worked there and they were regularly frisked (they would be arrested for this now). Apart from that it was not a bad place to work. After one year we were due to go back to respective areas, but we had to dismantle the apprentice school first. They made every type of primary cell that you have mentioned, even HT batteries.
I went back to Walthamstow after this, an even older factory on five floors I think, opposite Black Horse road station. Conditions were primitive, anything made from metal would quickly dissolve with the ammonium chloride used in the cells.
There were many factories around the UK producing batteries, when this factory closed some production went to Wales.
There was a development facility in Tottenham where Nickel Cadmium cells were researched, if any one is interested I will do a second part as I do not want to bore, Jeff G0PGY
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Old 30th Jan 2019, 9:39 pm   #76
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

The "big 6V flag-cell battery" - it could have been a starting-battery for old industrial/agricultural oil-engines.

As the name implies, these ran on heavy oil - but they were often started using petrol. For this they had a spark-plug and a 'trembler' coil arrangement, for which a battery was needed. Since the battery was only used to get the engine started and to run it for a few minutes to get some heat into it, there was little point fitting a lead-acid battery and a dynamo/regulator to recharge it so a dry-cell pack was the answer.

Once the engine was warmed-up, you switched off the petrol and turned-on the heavy oil supply, at the same time turning off the battery/coil arrangement which was no longer needed. The engine then ran with ignition by way of a 'hot spot' in the combustion chamber.
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Old 30th Jan 2019, 10:28 pm   #77
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Here's my Ever Ready pocket torch that I keep on my bedside table and take with me when we go on holiday. I use part run down pen cell batteries from my radios as they give out more than enough light for navigating to the loo, and should extent the life of the lens-ended bulb it uses. I do have some spares! Most of the label has worn off with use.

Re #74, the old Blue Ever Ready Leclanche U2 cells that I used to use in my Philips EL3585 battery tape recorder in the 1960's had a capacity of about 2Ah at the approx. 100mA drawn by the recorder with intermittent use. The Philips user manual said a set would last about 20 hours when used for 1 hour a day, and I found that that that was about right. I used to have three sets and change them after an hour to let them rest. I used to keep them in sets when fresh, then sort them by voltage when they were partly run down. For most of the 1960's they cost 4/- for six, and 5/- for six of the "sealed" (not "leakproof"!) white SP2 ones that had the same capacity. Not that I ever had an ordinary Blue U2 leak. I did try the Alkaline (orange) HP2 ones when they came out, but the voltage (or internal resistance?) of a fresh set was too high (low?) for the speed regulator to cope with, so I never used them, despite their longer running time. I don't know why I never thought of using only 5 and a dummy cell, which, given that the recorder would operate OK down to about 6.5V, ought to have worked.
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Old 30th Jan 2019, 11:42 pm   #78
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Flag batteries may well have had other uses,but one of the main was for signalling, in country houses, hotels and the like you had an indicator panel with a flag or some kind of mechanical indicator and a bell which summoned servants/hotel staff, for those that have not seen them some thing like 9 inches high and about 3 inches diameter,with two screw terminals on the top generally sitting on a shelf, using a number in series, according to use they would last typically ten years plus, this would be in the days prior to electricity supply
I found some new (old stock) about 1966 when a youngster, they even used grid bias batteries I suppose when the war? made these hard to get,
Jeff G0PGY
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Old 31st Jan 2019, 3:19 pm   #79
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Default Re: Is Ever Ready still a part of your life?

I have two Ever Ready Ni-cads that I got in 1971. Still used daily, is that a record??

Martin
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Old 31st Jan 2019, 11:08 pm   #80
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Re post #77, the lens end bulbs are still readily availably on ebay and elsewhere.
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