1908 Car Charger - Mercury Arc Rectifier

Steve Normandin puts together and shows how a battery charger from 1908 worked. The Baker Electric Car used Edison batteries to power the car. It was charged in the home using this massive battery charger. The glass mercury arc rectifier in the back glowed as it operated converting 120 volt AC power to 120-20 volts of DC power. The device features a slate control board with switches and a transformer to choke power at the bottom. It included a resistor grid, capacitors, fuses, copper wires to connect to the tube, asbestos insulated power plug. The Detroit Electric and Baker Electric were the earliest commerically available electric car.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• power
• electric history
• electric power history
• electric car history
• first electric car
• car chargers
• early
• dc current
• direct current
• alternating current
• resistance
• capacitance
• vacuum tubes
• glow
• spark
• liquid
• merc
• vapor
• coating
• antique
• cars
• autos
• historische
• historia
• technology
• engineering
• general electric motor
• transportation
• Menlo Park

[SittingMooseShaman]

...Rockefeller and his Eastern Oil Co amongst a few other oil co's made sure THIS tech did NOT go very far in the USA...

[fairyheli2]

when people hear flouresent lights have 5 miligrams of mercury in them, they go mad and get paranoid, they will shit bricks when they see this!

[douro20]

Where is Steve from?

[zxz1997]

This needs to be restored.

[CorvetteCoonass]

Its a gigantic bong that everyone can smoke at once. :P

[rocketman221projects]

Thats a scary looking piece of equipment.

[goofiaa]

fire it up !

[MasterGravitron]

Man people had Balls to operate that death trap back then.

[jwbrummel]

This is a great video, I like it a lot!!

[JBoogie300]

thats so cool!!!!!!