Memories

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk:

Tooling costs for tungsten must have been enourmous - but amortised over many years.

LED Tooling will be more generic to lots of other small circuits.Plus a bit of plastic.

John J Armstrong was thinking very hard :

That was, I think, the Mullard unit.

Harry Bloomfield explained on 20/04/2018 :

Yes....

Malvern Common still has them

I spent a lot of time using one of those. I had a Saturday and holiday job working for Technical Trading in Brighton, early to mid 1960s. Anyone remember them? (they advertised on page 3 of Wireless World, long closely printed lists of valves and prices)

They bought in used valves and we tested them. If OK, they were [repared for sale. If not, and they appeared to be 'soft', they were put in a large induction heater to re-ignite what was left of the getter, then re- tested - if OK, prepared for sale, otherwise junked.

We then cleaned off the old printing and reprinted with the type number and TT logo. The printer printed into reverse onto a rubber pad, and then we rolled the valve across that.

I mainly worked in the shop on Saturday, but I spent some holiday time doing the above.

We had several of those testers. Some valves required the use of three cards (e.g. double triodes, etc.)

Bob Eager brought next idea :

Yep, I remember their ads..

Were they sold as reconditioned?

I don't think so! However, the prices were very low, so most people would realise I guess.

They seemed to operate 'on the edge' quite a bit.

You shocked me by saying they were "used". I had assumed they were just low grade Russian imports.

Ah - back to Rigonda again. ;-)

Well, they came in mixed boxes with lots of brand names in each box!

Poundland has sold them for years. The power rating they can make for a pound slowly increases - I think it's up to 6W now.

I remember them, but as dad was an atomic physicist at the time, I was never allowed to use them.

Jacksons in Reading had one at least 10 years after that.

It was a mightmare when BT came to dispose of them. They cost much more to dispose than they originally cost to manufacture.

I remember a few places had gaslamps for emergency lighting. It all went in the conversion to Natural Gas.

I have since been told that natural gas can't burn on a mantle indoors without giving off more carbon monoxide than is permitted inside a building. I was trying to re-jet an old gaslamp, but it was giving off carbon monoxide, and when I eventually found someone who knew about gas lamps, this is apparently a known problem with natural gas and mantles.

There's a pub here that's still partly gas-lit ...

The UK Woolworths chain split from F.W.Woolworth around 1980 - different companies after that.

Glad we didn?t know that when we discovered the mantelpiece mounted lamps were still connected in a bedsit a work colleague rented in the early 1970?s. A proper old fashioned ironmonger rummaged around and found some mantles,saved quite a few 5 pence In the electric meter.

GH