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Habitat for Humanity store find (Weston Meters)

Started by ....., March 24, 2015, 02:04:51 PM

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I picked up a pair of old Watt Meters for $2.00 each today at the local Habitat for Humanity store today.  I believe they came out of the old Northern Electric / Northern Telecom plant here in Belleville, Ontario because one of the meters has an asset tag from Belleville on it. Would they have been used for testing telephones? The first two pictures are of the Weston meter and the last four of the Sensitive Research meter. The Weston has a date of 1969 and the Sensitive as date of 1961 Research on them.

19and41

Nice score!  Time to get out the components and calculator and verify they work allright.  Probably surplus auction items.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

unbeldi

#2
These are not for testing telephones.

These are meters that measure the power consumption of small AC loads.



Small power factor measurements are error-prone with normal dynamo-type wattmeters. The label you are showing states a very high accuracy of less than 1%.  So these are specially compensated units for this purpose.

One of them has a voltage selection for 110 V and 220 V.  Before connecting them to anything close to a utility power outlet, I would carefully check them out and test them on an isolation variac with small voltages at first and a lamp.

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Quote from: unbeldi on March 24, 2015, 02:37:33 PM
These are not for testing telephones.

These are meters that measure the power consumption of small AC loads.



Small power factor measurements are error-prone with normal dynamo-type wattmeters. The label you are showing states a very high accuracy of less than 1%.  So these are specially compensated units for this purpose.

One of them has a voltage selection for 110 V and 220 V.  Before connecting them to anything close to a utility power outlet, I would carefully check them out and test them on an isolation variac with small voltages at first and a lamp.

Thanks for the information, I wasn't sure what they were for. I won't be playing with them with any electricity, I like my hair the way it is straight, not curly.  :)
When I seen them in the store, I thought I just can't leave them here at that price. Besides the one had the Northern Electric tag on it peaked my interest because of the phone plant they had here.

Doug / Autonut

unbeldi

Indeed not a bad buy for a piece of authentic telephone central office equipment.  Cleaning up the outside, a little polish, should make a nice shelf display item.

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#5
I'm going back tomorrow morning, the cashier told me that they had just put them out. Maybe there will be more stuff like that from Northern put out.