Retro Bench - Cool hobby style builds done in the 70's style made with vintage parts, done the old school way.
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The Switchcraft switch near the beginning is similar to the relays used in Step-by-step and Ericson ARF & ARE-11 exchanged, with the very long vanes / reeds with the contacts on the ends, just a lever rather than an armature deflects them.
I had some incandescent versions of these as a kid in the early 70's. They were part of a big bunch of surplus electronics that we got from the Navy somehow- I went to school in Arlington, VA and someone's dad was probably responsible for disposing of this stuff. He packed it up and gave it to high school electronics classes. There was a bunch of cool stuff in these boxes- lot of servos, lvdt's, resolvers, etc, my teacher didn't know what to do with and let anyone have it if they were curious enough to play with it. I wish I had appreciated it more- it all got tossed many years ago in an attic cleanup when I went off to college around 1975.. These little displays did indeed exist with incandescent lamps- probably 5 years before LED's were common. They used "grain of wheat" lamps, the equivalent of a T-1 led- 3 mm. They were built the same way, plastic front optical unit that spread out the fibers to the dots, an aluminum heat sink layer and a perpendicular board that had a 7447 type device on it. On the back was an edge connector. They were a very standard military display module (DESC part numbe6 probably) that were used in a lot of different gear especially Navy shipboard stuff. I ran into the led version later in my career as an engineer at SAIC working on a submarine radiation monitoring instrument (IM-239). This was the main readout. It used a 4 digit version that was really expensive- when we won the contract to manufacture the first few hundred of these units, we applied to the Navy under a "value engineering" clause that said if we could take cost out the unit without affecting performance, we could split the savings with the government. We replaced this 4 digit assembly with an inhouse made board with 4 MAN-1A displays, resistors and a decoders in a compatible package for the 4 units. This was something like a $500 savings to the Navy. I think the originals were made by Dialight and probably others. I can imagine the tooling was something that had the fibers brought to the front though some holes with some stick out and then bundled back to the seven lamp locations and left long. After getting this all fixtured, it was filled with some kind of resin/plastic and then milled/polished to complete the assembly of the optical unit after tapping the four corners with #2-56 hardware. I wish I still had them. Nice blast from the past. These is probably an active NSN (national stock number) for these in the Navy logistics system. They were very reliable and very readable. I really enjoy and share your fascination with old display technology. It took a long time to get where we are.
I'm surprised the circuit does anything. The 4558 is not rated for operation on a single 5 V supply, and the 4510 has a typical output current of only 1 mA, while the LEDs are trying to draw over 5 mA. AND – using epoxy to mount a bare LED to a panel??? Not impressed.
using clear tape like that to transfer locations like that. its sheer genius. Ive been bashing custom holes in boxes for years. I rely on callipers and technical skill. Id like to say its a fuckin hard earnt skill, im good at it. that's a grand trick. I really like it. if its less critical, greasy fingers on paper to mark things out works. I will defiantly give it that try.
I think the paint drip font looked pretty good, I would 1000% use that font. I quite like the look. possibly cos I was a Graph kid, a wee bit of drip adds character, its a way of making a font without formality. well… I didnt paint. but part of the crew. I had radios, n could set up lookouts for those that did paint. our crew was 6 strong, but only 2 painters. we all helped with ladders and such, a 2 drivers, 2 painters, 2 lookouts team. we hit some big things in our town, big ugly concrete things that neeeded some color. in our eyes it was a civic service. we paid for it (good paint aint cheap), n nothing crass, just some cool art. cops gave up after a few hits, either cos we always got away, or "OK, that actually looks really sick". kinda took the fun out of it.
TL;DR you need specialists. engineers, artists, pilots, grunts. really helps if you can substitute roles, but if everyone knows their job, a team can get stuff dome pretty damn quick to a very high standard
Thanks for firing up my imagination. You are pure gold – cheers
Watching it to the end, thanks for sharing your insight to template and drill out the case! Tape, pinging, start out with the smallest drill. Brilliant 💯
Bumple – trademarked by Fran 😃 💯 – 💪
Great video Fran ! That took me back forty-five years back in time, unbelievable how fast things changed.
Okay – you damaged my brain again.
Loved this. Can't remember how many times I tripped over a function of a chip.
Love the clock display
Have to make one out of nicrome wire
That's the the topic we are looking for, ignoring the pool results. ✌ 70s style building
Fran, loved the great ideas you came up with! I was thinking as a non- engineer it would be really cool if u used some of the thicker guages and filled them with a small Christmas tree with your little, tiny, striped, glass (thingamabobs) that you could light and if u sell them I may be interested. Maybe a star. The stars are the limit! Was thinking a egg timer would truly be a cool idea too. Your clocks are a great idea too! Enough of the ideas! Your parts and pieces look great. Good Luck.
Wonderful. Calm, relaxing, nostalgic. Love Fran Blanche
Back in the 1970s I made a counter using four of these displays. It still works today!
intressting build , not realy sure what its usefull for, but still intressting tho , passinon
Dropped a $20 because I enjoy what you do and show us.