[R-390] Beaten Horse Graveyard (Goldberg replacement for 3TF7)

[Tom Norris]

Seriously, that would be a very good regulator box.  Those sort of  
things are less noisy than the constant HUMM of a Sola transformer.

Not so seriously, that sort of regulator was what my smart remark was  
based on. I sampled the current in the PTO-BFP fil circuit so as to  
drive such a regulator to keep the PTO-BFO filament current value at  
300 ma.

Then there's the mechanical Rube Goldberg sort of  thing, where a  
light bulb is used, which changes the resistance of a photocell,  
which changes the speed of a motor, which runs a fan, which pushes a  
sailboat across a tub of water, (the sailboat is attached to the near- 
side with a coil-spring), the sailboat has a string which is  
connected to a chute which regulates the amount of gerbil chow that  
feeds a team of gerbils that are on a gerbil wheel.  [this is where  
I've gotten stumped] The gerbil wheel is connected to a small dc  
generator.  When the ballast current is low, the light bulb is dim,  
the fan turns more slowly, the boat is pulled back by its spring.  
When it's pulled back, it operates a mechinism that shifts the gerbil  
chow chute out of the way and replaces it with a mixture of gerbil- 
chow and laxative.  Underneath the gerbil wheel is a "gerbil potty"  
and as it fills up, it controls a polarity reversal switch and  
changes the output of the DC generator to the opposite polarity.    
The plus/minus output of this is used similar to the simple  
comparator used in my first example. (or since the gerbils are making  
motion, the haywire thing might be able to directly control a phase- 
shift circuit of some sort)

I suppose if I drew the Rube Goldberg Apparatus it would be easier to  
modify.  I just came up with it ten minutes ago too, it would have  
taken longer than that to draw.

Mad Tom


On Jan 5, 2006, at 8:52 AM, Roy Morgan wrote:
>
>
> Tom,
>
> I have one of those. It weighs about 90 pounds.
>
> It's a General Radio 1592  voltage regulator (servo-driven variac)
>
> Good for about 60 amps line current when set for the lower range of  
> compensation(+/- 10 volts, I think.)
>
> I'm going to mount it LOW down in some rack and leave it there.  
> It'll run the whole shack and test bench.
>
> Roy
>
> - Roy Morgan, K1LKY since 1959 - Keep 'em Glowing!