Vintage Philips battery charger.

[Heatercathodeshort]

I thought you might be interested to see my latest gift.
It is a Philips battery charger model 366 that I guess dates from around 1927. I cannot find any reference to the charger itself, the two ES ballast resistors or even the mercury vapor rectifier.
It delivers around 5amps at 6 or 12volts adjustable by a large link.
It performs as good as it did all those years ago and is very spectacular as can be seen in these ghostly pictures taken in my rather cluttered tool shed...[It will receive it's usual spring clean out soon.]The inspection cover has been removed to take the internal pictures.
I don't think the Westinghouse metal rectifier became available until around 1930 but someone may be able to verify this.
I bet it's transmitting hash for miles around. Regards, John.

[Lucien Nunes]

Beautiful! I want one!

[TonyDuell]

Are you sure it's a mercury vapour rectifier? I thought battery chargers of that vintage tended to use something called a 'Tungar' rectifier, the name meaning TUNGsten (filament, so hot cathode) and ARgon (gas filled).

[Heatercathodeshort]

I think this is a mercury set up. I have a Tungar charger and the device lights similar to an ordinary lamp. This one has a very heavy central filament with two anodes about 1/2" distant from the filament. It also has a large number of mercury globules and that distinctive 'glow' that flutters with current change. It really is science fiction at its best. John.

[yesnaby]

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/philips...eraet_366.html

[TonyDuell]

Ah, if you can see the drops of mercury then it clearly is a mercury vapour rectifier. Very nice!

[McMurdo]

that's lovely and the detail of the philips logo in the grille is the sort of touch missing in garage equipment nowadays

[Hunts smoothing bomb]

Beautiful John, just beautiful.

Cheers

[Maarten]

Nice!

Could you have a look at the article number in the lower right of the type plate? This could (now or at some future point in time) help to date it.

Are there any other date or article codes on other parts such as the transformer or filter coil?

[Heatercathodeshort]

Thanks for the link YN. I did do a search but came up with nothing!
Hello Maarten, the number is MP3286. I have only blown the dust away, cleaned the ballasts and rectifier and given their mounting plate a coat of black paint. The actual case is in remarkably original condition and will stay so.
Quality logos are a thing of the past and even the young lads at the garage exclaimed 'but its a PHILIPS!' Probably the best known electrical logo [and its variants]of all time.
John.

[turretslug]

What a lovely thing! Does it come with dark glasses? No doubt that that's running.

[Maarten]

That's interesting. By any chance could you take a picture of this plate? I presume it is in English, the plate seen on the Dutch version is NR.1185 (so presumably somewhat older). Also is it MP and not NR (for number)?

[FERNSEH]

Noteworthy is the constant current device, type 340, commonly known as a barretter. The current through this device is sensibly constant over a given range of voltage.
Many radios and TVs employed a barretter in the series heater chain. Examples are the Philips C1 and GEC 305. In the Philips battery charger this must be one of the earliest applications for this type of constant current regulator.

http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_340-philips.html

DFWB.

[Heatercathodeshort]

Hello again Maarten,
Yes your are right, the letters are indeed NR. Photo of plate attached.

Hello David,
I think the GEC trade name for the current regulator is BARRETTA as you mentioned. I have only come across them in GEC and English Electric television receivers so I guess the name stuck.

As you can see by the ones fitted in the charger, the filaments are very thick unlike the rather delicate 305.
Regards, John.

[Peter.N.]

We had a similar one although bigger and with four baretters I believe in the shop where I worked in the '50s. You could put a string of 2v accumulators in series although by that time we were only regularly charging two or three. Putting them on charge was one of my first jobs there.

Peter

[Maarten]

Thank you for the picture! What voltage range is given on the type plate? I can't quite read it. Up to 250V?

Anyway, from the article number 3286 for the type plate, for now I can only assume it means the "English language " export model was conceived of some unknown amount of time after the Dutch model with article number 1185 for the type plate. I still have to find out whether those numbers were sequential, if so in what way they were sequential and at what rate they were used up. I have no closely neigbouring numbers in my archives to provide additional clues.

I have archived the picture and hope it will help me someday to crack the system.

[Radio Wrangler]

Don't tell the safety elves. They'd only insist everyone wore sunblock within a 37.623 metre radius when the mercury rectifiers were running.

Many many years ago I was given a huge Davenset battery charger which had spent its days in a bicycle shop charging batteries for just about everything in Fartown. It had a very large transformer, metal rectifiers and slide rheostats and ammeters for four outputs. The whole thing was the size and shape of a dog-kennel complete with the ridged roof. About springer-spaniel size. As a kid I pulled it apart and the heavy wire out of the transformer got used building aerials. The ammeters wound up in all sorts of homebrew equipment a big rheostat or two got donated to the school physics lab. I know, it would have been quite an interesting object nowadays.

David

[petervk2mlg]

Nice to see this. I have two of them in my collection.