custom dictation unit

[Babybearjs]

found this on Ebay. Got it today in the mail.... interesting unit as it is some sort of custom dictation unit. Made by "Adcor Electronics" in Georgia back in the 1970's... It had a broken microphone on it and the cord to attach it to a tape recorder got the unit for $10.00 and was able to gut the unit, restore the dial and save the pilot light and push button. the switches were soldiered on the PC board and broke when I tried to de soldier them... no biggie... simple replacement. was surprised at how poorly the unit was designed. the engineer who created it sure didn't know how to add pigtales to the switches and wired them on to the board.... and the overall design was custom.... I haven't seen a PC board as badly done as this one was... sure reminds me of my childhood. I didn't take any other pictures of this unit other than the one shown, stock photo from seller.... it has a #30 ITT dial that had been modified for the unit. thank God the unit had soldier points so restoring the dial to a regular wired dial was real easy. the unit came with a E5 based pilot light, a SPDT push button, the same as what ITT used on their 576 phones. and 2 DPDT switches which will be replaced. first time I've ever seen a dictation unit like this. the chassis is the same guage and color as the old wiremold fittings were back in the 70's. I'm going to spray paint the chassis in Black later. don't know what I'm going to use the piece for other then a adjunct dial for a TT phone. Another interesting find on Ebay.... the unit was sold through an antique dealer in AZ. fun project to keep busy with!

[RB]

Hi John.
I saw that thing too.
Kind of interesting
Was gonna bid on it, but I already have more projects than Carter has peanuts
Plus, I can't paint worth a hoot

[Key2871]

John, it looks as though it had a hammertone finish.
You can get that type at Wal-Mart, and other places just choose the correct color.

[Babybearjs]

it was an interesting unit. to think that someone designed this for a dictation unit... why the rotary dial though? following after the dicaphone idea? different. sell, I put the project away for now. will pick it up later when I get a better idea of how to use it. I could use it on my intercom system.... adding a 101A coil and some caps. The possibilities could be endless... but, that's for later. here's what the PC board looked like. reminded me of a Heath-kit project. could that have been its origins? did Heath-kit make something like this to sell? one will never really know....

[Key2871]

Well, I've seen pretty bad soldering jobs before.. But I think that might win an award for one of the worse. Wow.
I think your on the right track reworking it in to a functional something. Because as a ditctaphone, don't think it would work..long

[FABphones]

Yikes, both sides of that board are a mess. From track layout to component placement to soldering.

[Babybearjs]

that's why I mentioned Heath-Kit. do you think this could have been a "kit project?

[Jim Stettler]

I think it is a homemade board in a project enclosure. I think Heathkit would of provided a printed circuit board. It looks like they used solder instead of printed circuits.
JMO,
Jim

[twocvbloke]

Looks about "right" given its' age, all hand drawn and flooded with solder, hand-drawn layouts like these always look pretty poor compared to the CAD PCB layouts we have today, but back then they had no such thing, so hand-doodling & screen printing were the way to go to make them...

The soldering though is pretty rough, but that's about right for the era too, as it was probably wave-soldered (where a PCB is basically floated over a tank of molten solder) and resulted in a blobby mess, again nothing like what we have today, but that was of its' era...

[Key2871]

I've seen heath kits before, so I doubt this would have been that. It looks more like someone converted something with a telephone dial, and added a couple things to make it a dictation unit of sorts. But I've seen dictation units before, never with a dial, clearly for telephone use incorporated into the same unit.

[FABphones]

that's why I mentioned Heath-Kit. do you think this could have been a "kit project?

On first look, I thought not necessarily a kit but certainly home produced (I used to CAD PCBs hence my 'yikes').

[19and41]

I've seen limited run "tidal wave" soldering like that on low nimber devices.  It might have also been reflowed.  Some of those old printed boards had brittle traces and when one or more would fracture one would have to solder over all the traces to prevent periodic failures.

[Key2871]

Yes, what I was thinking. It looks like they wanted to solder coat the copper traces so they "flowed" on them but it looks as though some solder had made its way to other traces not necessarily the correct ones creating in essence a short circuit. I made my own network board for my first 233, that I didn't know I needed a subset for, and it looked far and beyond better than that board. And I also coated the traces with solder, not flooded it.
Well John you have your work cut out for you.. Good luck.

[Babybearjs]

High School Electronics project?? I remember taking electronics in High school and learning how to make PC boards... I don't think they even teach that anymore...

[Key2871]

Possible, but too likely in my opinion. I think it started live as some sort of telephone thing... What I don't know. Because making a perfect hole the size of the #7 dial, isn't easy. Then it changed and they decided dictation? I mean really even that makes no sense because where's the equipment to record on? Something that large, seems it would be all in one unit.