Any one know what the running or operating time would be on a set of rods , would they have used them sparingly so to get a number of uses or would they be turned on and the rods used up in one use
Beautiful video! It is interesting how the ballasts for Cooper Hewitt and the Type RF lamps are so similar. The bulbs, too. Although the ballasts are more similar than the bulbs
I've actually been looking for one of those rf fittings, funny enough. I'm a fluorescent light collector, also to add the two lamp rf fixtures these days are even harder to find than the single lamp variant from what I have noticed. As for the hostility from the other collector, that's fucked up. But yeah, you and nicksfans are the only two collectors I know of that have these fixtures, and both of you seem wonderful. Closest thing I have to those fittings are the fluorescent lighting manuals that Charles amick wrote, both of which do have the electrical schematic for both rf lamp fittings. Also thank you for showing us the inside as well, from one collector to another. I love this kind of stuff! You also got me excited seeing the black ender there, I didn't even know those were made. But of course seeing it be westinghouse I anticipate it, what's more those electrodes look very well built. I love seeing quality made lamps
In the early 1900's they used these arc lamps to light up the Tabernacle on Temple square in SLC, Utah, I saw a picture of one in one of our church manual's
Thank You. I've been involved with electricity, radio, and electronics for 70 years and I didn't know anything about these lamps. I thought they were only a creature of edison's DC dementia. Of course I have always been interested in big search lights.. but these AC streetlights are new territory.
Very nice fixture! However, I would be very careful in operating the light. Those 2 caps will have pcb's inside, and due to age, they will fail! I used to have several 4' preheat fixtures with the high power factor ballasts, but the caps in them went bad. Do miss the blinkfest.......
truly unusual ! I remember seeing a florescent fixture as a teen back in the 70's that was an older style by that time. instead of the two prongs on both ends of the tube, it had a single connector at each end that were round, and reminded me of the end of a bullet. I think they were spring loaded, if I remember correctly... I had never seen one like that b4. and this is even more unusual & interesting. Thanks man! 👍gave you a like and sub 😀
The single contact ended fluorescent lamp you described is widely known as a slimline fluorescent, introduced in 1946 by Westinghouse, the very first ones were indeed slimmer - F42T6, F64T6, F72T8 & F96T8, as opposed to the then most widely used lamps, the F40T12 48 inch, and F100T17 60 inch - introduced in 1940 as highest output fluorescent lamp at the time mostly used in manufacturing facilities and often considered an early prototype of the High Output, Very High Output & Powergroove lamps later introduced by GE in the mid 1950s. Soon after westinghouse introduced the slimline lamps, T12 single pin lamps became available but the name stuck. Today slimline lamps are available in T6, (F42T6, F64T6) T8, (F72T8, F96T8) and T12 in 24, 36, 42, 48, 60. 64, 72, 84 and 96 inches, with the F96T12 by far the most common, along with the F72T12, with the 48 inch and smaller being very uncommon. Slimline lamps are also referred to as instant start lamps, they require a significantly higher voltage to start than other lamps of a given length & diameter, therefore special ballasts are required. Because the lamps start don't use cathode heating like a bi-pin lamp, slimlines are slightly more energy efficient although lamp life is somewhat reduced for a given number of hours/start, so they were almost always used in commercial settings where the lamps are expected to operate continuously for several hours or days between starts.
Very interesting. I had no idea that these existed. During WWII I (age 6-7) lived with my grandparents and they had fluorescent lights in the kitchen that flickered badly. The ferro resonant ballast mostly fixed that. Later we got electronic ballasts all with no or little flicker. Now we have LED lights, some of which flicker.
Take super extra care when handling that broken lamp. Being manufactured in the early '40s it absolutely contains manganese doped zinc beryllium silicate phosphor before the phase-out in '49, which happened, incidentally, as a direct result of the identification and discovery of berylliosis of the lungs in workers making exactly this kind of lamp....quite possibly at the exact same factory where these very lamps were made. Be and its compounds, to those who are genetically susceptible, can be supremely toxic, with permissible air concentration levels at the mere nanogram per m^3 level. Hazardous air concentration limits which are only rivaled by things like radium, plutonium, and VX agent. I would actually love to get a spectrum of the light coming off of one of them. I have never seen the spectrum for an original Be phosphor based lamp and it would be a great addition to the halophosphate and tri-phosphate spectra on the wiki page, which I took many years ago.
Could be a hazardous material dumpster intended for special handling disposal. Or, the company just has a policy against it so that employees don't throw away useful items with the specific intent of collecting it later.
This has to be brighter than a 100W incandescent lamp. Arc lamps were pretty ubiquitous not that long ago wherever high intensity lighting was required. Not street lighting. Seriously my car has HID arc lamps today. Bloody brilliant ( pun intended) I trust you were wearing welding PPE in front of your face at least during this demo. You weren't getting tanned, your skin's DNA was being sliced and diced. Great presentation 🙏
The tubes act just like a standard full wave mercury rectifier in high power tube circuits. The filament or cathode end is grounded and the two electrodes go to the split phases of a center tap transformer to keep one electrode on at a time. The plate is there to stop an arc from jumping the two electrodes when one is off and causing a short.
I think I may have 2 of these hanging in my garage. One in the loft no longer works, one in the main garage I don't think I've ever tested. Definitely the same reflector style and definitely old!
Thanks for sharing this old arc lamp. That is a really clever mechanism for keeping the carbons adjusted and making sure the arc touches off reliably when power is first applied. It goes to show that people were plenty smart in the old days - they just had not yet discovered modern technology.
I can't believe a collector would treat another collector with such hostility. Surely this guy understands that if you didn't save stuff it would end up being destroyed, you'd think he would realise you're both working to a common goal, no? Disgusting behaviour, I can only assume his petty spitefulness must be a result of some form of jealousy, I hope karma catches up with him!
I love this vintage, early fluorescent stuff. I don't have any RF fixtures, but I do have a couple of old T12 based fixtures from the 50s. I grew up with fluorescent, and I still have some of the fixtures from my childhood, so it has a bit of nostalgia for me. The rectified fluorescent you featured look amazingly cool. Thanks for posting this!
A little argument about the frequency. Apart from the gravity effects (vertical mounting), there is basically a symmetry, meaning the current goes through zero 120 times per second, not just 60 times. My understanding and belief has been that the “light pillar” lamps still used in even on the latter part of 1900s for some fair advertising were these carbon arc lamps. In fact they were left-overs from WW2, then used for anti aircraft artillery guidance. . A funny memory from my young explorer days - I put together two carbons from big old lantern batteries, a space heater (as a series connected current limiter) and maybe a 150 W transformer, or maybe no transformer at all, plus some wiring. When I touched the corners of the two carbons to each other, I got an open air version of my “arc lamp” Too bad, the carbons got hot in a short while, and melted the adhesive on the insulating tapes I had applied for keeping the carbons in my hands. The tape started slipping, and I got into direct contact with the carbons. Got a little educational experience that I had not expected. I think one time was enough to me for playing with my arc lamp.
0:15 *WHAT?!?* Is this true, or some kind of in-group joke thing? If it's true, people are such lunatics. Why would your employer even care if they were in the dumpster??
@@nathanwyson3232generally, no, so long as you are not trespassing to access the dumpster. At least in my locality, removing something from a construction waste dumpster accessible from the sidewalk (e.g. parked in the street) would be perfectly fine.
@@Mirroxaphene i thinks its just plain greed! the want the weight for the metal all to themselves... and get their shorts in a knot if someone takes any of it from them.
Hi i'm viatron from Sheffield, this was the very first electric carbon arc street light & since the mid-1880s when the first electric arc street lamps were installed in many towns & cities via being very unstable & very unsafe in those times until the more safer lamps such as tungsten filament, mercury & sodium gas filled versions of the early-1900s & also the development of the fluorescent tube in multi-tubed fluorescent lanterns developed in the 1950s. Thanks for your co-operation on this very special vintage electric arc carbon street lighting subject from David Viatron Esquire of crookes in Sheffield, England.
That’s really great to see you back! I used to enjoy your videos before that drama went down. I on the other hand am guilty of collecting fluorescent stuff haha. Regarding those sockets and how the tubes are held onto the fixture in general, I think really really British fluorescent stuff used their standard bayonet sockets on each end of the lamp, which was quite strange and somewhat reminiscent of the RF stuff at least regarding once again how they were connected and supported. Either way I really loved your presentation on this stuff, to me early fluorescent stuff is right up my alley so it’s really cool to hear about that stuff!
Never got a chance to see your other videos pre-takedown… your arc lighting and low pressure mercury videos are awesome and I’d love to see the rest of your collection. Seems like you’ve got a lot of super rare and amazing stuff!
@@Mirroxaphene Thanks for your reply, I have to say that is interesting. I once got a job offer to run 1930's 35mm cinema projectors that ran carbon arc lamps to which I said thanks but no thanks due to the fact that they ran 2 projectors that ran 2000ft reels which would give you 15 minutes of a movie after that you would switch to the other projector that would screen the next reel
