One think that I wouldn't mind finding is a replacement mercury switch for my Philco "Bing Crosby" radio phonograph, it has a tilt switch in the record player mechanism that has gone bad. I heard that you can revive them by shaking them but it hasn't worked so far. It's kind of neat in that you load the records through a slot sort of like a CD player, but they are 78s of course.
The vacuum tube is not a 'tube' - but is a clever type of relay.
DC is a bitch to switch, because it arcs very easily. AC is slightly better, because the natural drop in teh voltage to zero, tends to extinguish weak arcs. DC, however, doesn't naturally break arcs.
The vacuum relay avoid arcs because it has no air in it for the arc to pass through. It is activated by heating a strip of metal which expands and operates the relay.
Ed, do you think that vac tube is a over amp current limiting switch? I guess your not doing HD videos do to the time issues? I though the tripod worked well in this video
Love that old analog technology. Days of old when quality was presumed in everything manufactured even in stuff badly designed. I dread the day the middle east ever starts manufacturing and replacing China as the garbage maker of the world. Worse to worser.
I just bought a 5 gallon diesel tank. I was filling it with fuel and Chinese quality control reared its head. How in the hell does someone make a container for fuel and it comes with a 1/4 inch hole in the bottom? Appreciate your hobby.
When I was a kid we could go to the drug store and buy a couple ounces of mercury off the shelf. We would play around with it making our silver coins brighter and new looking. Course you could buy dynamite, sodium chlorate, etc. from the local feed store or hardware store then too.
My last video pre edited was about 400mb. Using virtualdub to edit and compress, the finished video was just under 40mb and seven minutes in length. Course, your quality is better.
Do you use or have access to ADSL2+? I do and it's pretty fast, yes I know this isn't really related to this video. You're right about Internet access in Australia, it does suck and the NBN doesn't look like it's going to improve things as to cost. I'm sure I saw an AEI brand security system in an old Dick Smith catalogue, but I may be wrong.
You may have to make the files smaller when you are editing the videos. I always do that. A 12 minutes vid in 480p can get as small as 80mb. And then it won't take that much time at all to upload.
@Aussie50 export the videos as MP4 aka AVC aka H264 .. that's exactly the same format youtube uses (and thus, the youtube converting stuff is done within seconds)
@Aussie50 oh i forgot.. you said this vid was about 600MB .. if you exported it in your video editing software as AVC/H264, it probably would be a lot smaller.
in fact, when you go to your "my videos" thingy here on youtube and click on the "Download MP4" button, i bet the file you get there would be quite a lot smaller than 600MB..
video editing and especially the exporting formats are a painus in the anus to figure out.. especially if filesize is critical, like in your case :/
@Knaeckebrotsaege I saved a test vid in MP4 yesterday but the quality was terrible :(. I need to find a way to get the quality back but still compress it a bit more.
High quality will usually always be big files tho.
@fredlllll I don't see any differences to the full format and the smaller one. Maybe because the quality of my videos suck. It's not my video card. That thing can give 1200 X 1920 ,so that's not a problem.
@Aussie50 It might be disappointing to watch, while it is toxic it's slow acting, on the other hand if it's in vaporized for it's very dangerous. There was some East Indian in Vancouver (or area) that heated some up on his stove and it killed him after about half a day. Hatters apparently used to use a lot of mercury for curing felt and the vapors would give them mercury poisoning over time making them a bit weird, hence where the term "mad as a hatter" came from.
@Aussie50 I have a small jar of the stuff that a guy gave me years ago, he got it from some guy that omwas going to dump it down a drain, it's mercury salvaged from old thermometers, not sure what I will do with it. . I heard it can do some interesting things to aluminium, apparently it will cause it to corrode like crazy by wiping away the oxide layer. Someone told me that mercury is actually worth money but I don't know who is buying it.
I don't think that was a vacume tube. Do you think mayby, it's was a Flux capasitor?.
vidmanproductions 7 months ago
im thinking that was from the coal mining industrythe uk was the leading man ficheras
in coal mining epumant at the time
scottaner500 7 months ago
I'm moving to a house with 100/100 in a month or so, it will be awesome :)
DOSn3rd 7 months ago
All that vacuum stuff and mercury switch is probably made this way to avoid igniting battery fumes when charging at at couple hundred amps ;-)
zaprodk 7 months ago
One think that I wouldn't mind finding is a replacement mercury switch for my Philco "Bing Crosby" radio phonograph, it has a tilt switch in the record player mechanism that has gone bad. I heard that you can revive them by shaking them but it hasn't worked so far. It's kind of neat in that you load the records through a slot sort of like a CD player, but they are 78s of course.
OlegKostoglatov 7 months ago
Save up more mercury so you can build your own Vimana.
gavincurtis 7 months ago
I want to see your hazmat pile.
nodariel 7 months ago
@nodariel not much here at the moment, a few metal halide lamps, mercury switches and PCB filled caps.
Aussie50 7 months ago
microwave the tubes
karmabike1 7 months ago
Wait for NBN
benny52000 7 months ago
The vacuum tube is not a 'tube' - but is a clever type of relay.
DC is a bitch to switch, because it arcs very easily. AC is slightly better, because the natural drop in teh voltage to zero, tends to extinguish weak arcs. DC, however, doesn't naturally break arcs.
The vacuum relay avoid arcs because it has no air in it for the arc to pass through. It is activated by heating a strip of metal which expands and operates the relay.
ChumpusRex 7 months ago
@ChumpusRex great explination!, thats why a lot of air gap switches are de-rated for DC as opposed to AC switching
Aussie50 7 months ago
Ed, do you think that vac tube is a over amp current limiting switch? I guess your not doing HD videos do to the time issues? I though the tripod worked well in this video
Keep up the good work!
rotarycomptech 7 months ago
hey I am interested in the vacuum tube and the mercury switch.
10ol 7 months ago 2
Nice tube- would fit nicely on some steampunk rifle :)
mechadrake 7 months ago
I think the tube/valve is also a rectifier, if there are no other type of diodes anywhere, that's what it is.
CoolDudeClem 7 months ago
Love that old analog technology. Days of old when quality was presumed in everything manufactured even in stuff badly designed. I dread the day the middle east ever starts manufacturing and replacing China as the garbage maker of the world. Worse to worser.
I just bought a 5 gallon diesel tank. I was filling it with fuel and Chinese quality control reared its head. How in the hell does someone make a container for fuel and it comes with a 1/4 inch hole in the bottom? Appreciate your hobby.
tonysshadow 7 months ago
man, this old stuff is fun! nowadays its all solid-state crap that you cant take motors out of.
cheetawolf 7 months ago
When I was a kid we could go to the drug store and buy a couple ounces of mercury off the shelf. We would play around with it making our silver coins brighter and new looking. Course you could buy dynamite, sodium chlorate, etc. from the local feed store or hardware store then too.
My last video pre edited was about 400mb. Using virtualdub to edit and compress, the finished video was just under 40mb and seven minutes in length. Course, your quality is better.
huerdon 7 months ago
@huerdon you could buy mercury off the shelf? HAHA, i bet that was fun.
cheetawolf 7 months ago
@cheetawolf Not as much fun as the sodium chlorate mixed with a little sugar and a 5/32 cannon fuse. The fish didn't stand a chance ;-)
huerdon 7 months ago
Try giving the tube some voltage with the variac and see if you can make it click.
Smaller versions of this were used in audio amplifiers to switch on the anode voltage after the filaments had warmed up.
TheElectricnoob 7 months ago
45 minute equiptment autopsy is going to be boring. keep them short, detailed and very interesting.
like this one ;)
360ThickQuinking360 7 months ago
heat activated switch will switch off when hot.
scaleop4 7 months ago
there is not much on google about that Battery Charge Time Relay ?
scaleop4 7 months ago
Why do they put a silver coating on the inside of the glass in vacuum tubes?
locouk 7 months ago
@locouk Thats a getter that eats up the remaining oxygen and other gases that remained after the pumpdown.
TheElectricnoob 7 months ago
Love the vacuumtube!
BarneySaysHi 7 months ago
some vacuum contactor info here:
electricstuff.co.uk/glassbits.html
Andromedan 7 months ago
Do you use or have access to ADSL2+? I do and it's pretty fast, yes I know this isn't really related to this video. You're right about Internet access in Australia, it does suck and the NBN doesn't look like it's going to improve things as to cost. I'm sure I saw an AEI brand security system in an old Dick Smith catalogue, but I may be wrong.
Lachlant1984 7 months ago
Scrap companies gotta be careful with mercury in stuff like that, Good Vid, Autopsy's are always fun :)
HDXFH 7 months ago
haha, when the geek group doesn't have a video, you do!
jvcrules 7 months ago
@jvcrules yeh their vids have really died off lately :(
Aussie50 7 months ago 5
You may have to make the files smaller when you are editing the videos. I always do that. A 12 minutes vid in 480p can get as small as 80mb. And then it won't take that much time at all to upload.
PA5cAl1 7 months ago
@PA5cAl1 ah okay,. I'm running 480HD in Mt2s format. this vid was about 600mb
Aussie50 7 months ago
@Aussie50 export the videos as MP4 aka AVC aka H264 .. that's exactly the same format youtube uses (and thus, the youtube converting stuff is done within seconds)
Knaeckebrotsaege 7 months ago
@Aussie50 oh i forgot.. you said this vid was about 600MB .. if you exported it in your video editing software as AVC/H264, it probably would be a lot smaller.
in fact, when you go to your "my videos" thingy here on youtube and click on the "Download MP4" button, i bet the file you get there would be quite a lot smaller than 600MB..
video editing and especially the exporting formats are a painus in the anus to figure out.. especially if filesize is critical, like in your case :/
Knaeckebrotsaege 7 months ago
@Knaeckebrotsaege I saved a test vid in MP4 yesterday but the quality was terrible :(. I need to find a way to get the quality back but still compress it a bit more.
High quality will usually always be big files tho.
Aussie50 7 months ago
@PA5cAl1 480p and 80mb? maybe 180 mb but with 80mb it looks shit!
fredlllll 7 months ago
@fredlllll I don't see any differences to the full format and the smaller one. Maybe because the quality of my videos suck. It's not my video card. That thing can give 1200 X 1920 ,so that's not a problem.
PA5cAl1 7 months ago
they don't make em like that anymore :'(
flamesecure 7 months ago
I wanna eat that mercury.
NOLIMIT69NOLIMIT2000 7 months ago
@NOLIMIT69NOLIMIT2000 lol I wanna stick you in a vault and observe the effects afterward :D
Aussie50 7 months ago 5
@Aussie50 Sounds like fun. Will you make a video of it and post it for everyone to watch. Lol
NOLIMIT69NOLIMIT2000 7 months ago
@Aussie50 It might be disappointing to watch, while it is toxic it's slow acting, on the other hand if it's in vaporized for it's very dangerous. There was some East Indian in Vancouver (or area) that heated some up on his stove and it killed him after about half a day. Hatters apparently used to use a lot of mercury for curing felt and the vapors would give them mercury poisoning over time making them a bit weird, hence where the term "mad as a hatter" came from.
OlegKostoglatov 7 months ago
@OlegKostoglatov yeah Its nasty slow shit!. that's how the Hatter in Alice in Wonderland was so nutty!
I took my last lot to a hazmat disposal center a while back, but I may hold onto the stuff I have now since it is sought after by hobbyists.
Aussie50 7 months ago
@Aussie50 I have a small jar of the stuff that a guy gave me years ago, he got it from some guy that omwas going to dump it down a drain, it's mercury salvaged from old thermometers, not sure what I will do with it. . I heard it can do some interesting things to aluminium, apparently it will cause it to corrode like crazy by wiping away the oxide layer. Someone told me that mercury is actually worth money but I don't know who is buying it.
OlegKostoglatov 7 months ago