Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Unusual piece of the parallel universe
The Soviet parallel universe is famous in the realms of cars and radios, but it also functioned in other fields.
Basic rule: Good stuff disappears fast in the US environment of Innovative Disruption (aka Obliteration of Skills and Civilization) but carries on in sane countries.
Here's an unexpected example. Many years ago Polistra focused on this gadget:
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Polistra demonstrates an invention from Morse's era. Seems like an idea that could be brought back. Moses Farmer's thermo-electric battery dates from the 1860's. It was basically a layer-cake of copper-nickel alloy ("german silver") and zinc-antimony alloy, with insulating layers of mica. The cake was hollow in the center, allowing a chimney to heat every layer evenly. When heated by coal or methane, it generated a significant amount of power: enough to run a small silver-plating plant, according to contemporary writeups.
Doesn't seem to be the usual millivolt-making thermocouple. It's more like a wet cell in its chemistry.
Could be useful in situations where heat is already present, as co-generation. With propane, it could be an emergency source of both heat and electricity. Might work with a solar boiler to provide steady power?
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Artistic note for Poser types: The digital model (and the bulb and lots of other stuff) are on my ShareCG page.
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Idly windowshopping on Ebay for 'soviet radio', this thing came up:
Clearly the same gadget. Presumably designed for off-the-grid places like Arctic oil camps or collective farms.
The Ebay writeup says this was specifically designed to work with the Rodina-47 radio, which was a battery-powered table model with LW, MW, and SW bands, made through the late '40s and early '50s. The back-view picture of the radio shows the same four-wire cable leading out of the case. So this generator would have provided separate 2V filament and 120V plate sources. It's unusual to find SW bands on Soviet radios in the early '50s; most urban apartments were simply hardwired to the official Party Muzak. Remote farms and camps must have been granted special privileges. мужик > музак.
Polistra demonstrates an invention from Morse's era. Seems like an idea that could be brought back. Moses Farmer's thermo-electric battery dates from the 1860's. It was basically a layer-cake of copper-nickel alloy ("german silver") and zinc-antimony alloy, with insulating layers of mica. The cake was hollow in the center, allowing a chimney to heat every layer evenly. When heated by coal or methane, it generated a significant amount of power: enough to run a small silver-plating plant, according to contemporary writeups.
Doesn't seem to be the usual millivolt-making thermocouple. It's more like a wet cell in its chemistry.
Could be useful in situations where heat is already present, as co-generation. With propane, it could be an emergency source of both heat and electricity. Might work with a solar boiler to provide steady power?
= = = = =
Artistic note for Poser types: The digital model (and the bulb and lots of other stuff) are on my ShareCG page.
= = = = = END REPRINT.
Idly windowshopping on Ebay for 'soviet radio', this thing came up:
Clearly the same gadget. Presumably designed for off-the-grid places like Arctic oil camps or collective farms.
The Ebay writeup says this was specifically designed to work with the Rodina-47 radio, which was a battery-powered table model with LW, MW, and SW bands, made through the late '40s and early '50s. The back-view picture of the radio shows the same four-wire cable leading out of the case. So this generator would have provided separate 2V filament and 120V plate sources. It's unusual to find SW bands on Soviet radios in the early '50s; most urban apartments were simply hardwired to the official Party Muzak. Remote farms and camps must have been granted special privileges. мужик > музак.Labels: Alternate universe, skill-estate
¶ 3:43 PM
