Unusual usage (hours) counter with mercury capillary
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- čas přidán 1. 05. 2014
- This is a usage counter that works by moving mercury in a capillary tube via electrochemistry. As electricity flows through the device, mercury atoms are transferred across an electrolyte gap in the capillary. The position of the gap changes as mercury is transferred, and shows how much total charge has been passed through the device.
I realize that the divider network looks more like 20:1. This might kill my theory that the mercury ions are in the 2+ state. I'm really not sure. - Věda a technologie
Wow that is cool!
All hail the mercury god!
I bet you are planning on recreating this. Can't wait to see that video!
Cody'sLab how the fuck did I know you would be in the comments of this before even looking?
Cody loves mercury
Cody is the mad hatter of mercury.
Nice video. These counters are sometimes used with small but expensive parts such as deuterium spectrophotometer lamps ($600) to log hours because their efficiency drops off at more than 1200 hours. I enjoyed Ben's calculations and I think I have a few counters in the junk box with hours remaining and might experiment to see if they are linear with respect to voltage/amperage input.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing the calculations, they're fun to follow.
I know this doesn't directly apply to the video subject, but I really appreciate the volume of videos recently. Never feel that you should sacrifice your top-notch quality for volume however. There really isn't anyone else like you on youtube!
Nice video! Panasonic used these things in their M-2 professional format VTRs in the 1980s. They had a 2000 hour range and one of the preventative maintenance steps was to reverse the meter at 2000 hours and make a note of how many times it was reversed. Of course, nobody ever did it.
Yep! I just found a bag of 40 brand new TM-2 2000-hour timers...used on many older VTRs...not sure whether they have any value today! I guess my next stop should be eBay! :-)
I always found really cool how back in the day they used some really smart usage of an electrical phenomenon to make an instrument. Nowadays it's pretty much just microchips that do everything. I mean, it's incredibly more convenient, but it's nonetheless nowhere near as elegant :P
I think now is interesting too, with Mems or chemistry on a chip. It's still crazy stuff.
it was more convinient back then actually. circuits were made of simple available discrete components and the sizes were much more forgiving for your working conditions. Nowadays, like 95% is intergrated and it really pushes the requirements for tools and skills to even put togather a PCB. Some cases are simply impossible outside of pro lab or manufacturing site. And conviniently sized cases of ICs are getting either much more expensive due to quantities sold, or phased out from the market completely. And you can not make a discrete competitive alternative for intergrated stuff in any reasonable time yourself because IC is a product of teamwork of experts who spend huge amount of human-hours to optimize and test their creation.
If you think about how the microchips actually work it is just as elegant and interesting.
These used to be common in professional video equipment; Sony used to put these in their VTRs.
Used to see these in 1 inch C-format and Betacam VTR's only they were a lot smaller I think. Mostly for the usage of the video heads and other service intervals.
Very cool, Ben!
I have no idea about your explanation, but after a long day, I just like the fact that I was mesmerized by your genius and I believe what you say. You restore my faith in humanity and also make me believe that it’s possible to be a fricken genius and not be arrogant.
FINALLY! I've seen hundreds of these, always wondered how they work. Good job on the explanation!
Ben, we can always rely on you to show us something interesting or something we have never seen before! Thanks and keep up the good work
I'm constantly amazed at how you are able to make the math understandable and interestingly practical. Something that I struggled with all the way through my schooling to become an engineer.
Great stuff Ben Keep em comming
I️ hope you get more time to keep making videos Ben. Your style of educating just works. I’ve learned a great deal watching your channel, thank you!
Awesome "teardown". Thanks for sharing the theory and calculations behind this piece of technology. This video was very exciting to watch!
TechMoan crew lets hear you!
had to google this after the laserdisc video.
@@jonasglanshed there is a link to this video in laserdisc description :)
@@randomnickify thats where I found this vid too
I’m glad he linked it. I was the idiot that asked how it worked in the comments on his video.
Fascinating device and an excellent analysis.
What a great artifact! Thanks for sharing that. I had no idea such a device was ever put into production for measuring equipment run time. Please keep posting great videos!
I love old "analogical" technology, this little thing is as simple as an electric device gets yet in theory its more precise than most numeric power consumption meters that have been sold over the last 10 years that have more than a hundred components in them if you count APU sub assemblies.
I'm gonna find myself one on ebay if i can, also it would seem to be a really great demonstration device for schools were you could show electrolysis and how battery works on another angle, showing clearly the metal moving.
Thanks a lot for sharing all this with all the calculations i really enjoyed it.
Sir, I'm subscribing immediately to this channel!
Cheers Ben for the video (s) interesting little device. What i got from this was its like watching electrons flow through a conductor, cool. All excited about the ruby laser....too. Take it easy Ben
Thanks for the demo! I think I read about this device in some old EE text book. Calculations remind me of the time I calculated how long it would take to displace all electrons in 1 mol of copper wire conducting 1 amp - a little more than a day if I recall correctly.
Great video. Saw one of these in the 80's in Anritsu Spectrum Analyser. Figured it was an hour meter. The cct diagram just showed 2000h next to the part. Love your work.
At one time I picked up a Sony Betamax commercial VCR that had been used in a tape duplicating lab and it had the same kind of hourmeter. I didn't know how it worked, so this was an interesting watch for me. Nice to know that it was indeed using mercury as I couldn't imagine anything else and I wasn't willing to tear the unit apart to find out.
There was one of these things inside my Anritsu MS2601J spectrum analyser, it wasn't even mention in the service manual exactly what it was or how to test it so thanks for explaining it.
this is my fav youtube channel
Very cool. But I guess, at least in the west, we don't use mercury for anything anymore. I remember mercury thermometers when I was little, but I have not seen one in a long time.
10 years ago or so everyone in germany had to bring their mercury thermometer to the nearest pharmacy and got a free digital one in return .
they are banned since 2009
... and so we trade our mercury thermometer for mercury light bulbs?
Your comment aside; it's nice to see the people I am subscribed to to know each other. It sounds kind of silly, I know.
Yeah, CFLs and other fluorescent lights contain traces of mercury, but luckily these are more and more replaced with LEDs, Dogwood Tales.
From a purely scientific/engineering point of view, this was a wonderfully educational video.
I agree with *****. It is nice to see our various "circles' overlap. I find it reminds me just how conneted we really are.
Side note: Mercury, like all the elements, is a natural substance. That is not to say it is "safe." All things can be VERY dangerous unders certain conditions. They can also be safe under others. The key is to be aware of what you are working with, handle it with due respect, and most importantly maintain a reasonable and factual attitude regarding the issues involved. If we simply eliminated every "dangerous" substance from our lives, we would all be living in mud & staw huts, eating only an handfull of grasses, and not having: cleaned water, indoor pluming, electric devices (absolutely none), cumbustion engine (fossil, steam, or otherwise), fire (of any kind). In short, we would be vegitarian cavemen without fire.
Great work! Thanks for the video.
I like the easiness of your calculations... my secondary school physics didn't look that easy :) but now indeed everything makes perfect sense.
AMAZING device! first time i see this!!
Something very similar was used by the US military to time explosives in Vietnam. I think the device was called a C cell and used silver nitrate and silver wire. The resistance of the cell changed at time out. I believe the device was used as a low current, long delay timer either to trigger land mines or disable them after their usefulness was at an end.
Bravo! Nicely done
Fantastic. Very interesting.
Fantastic, learned something!
I like simple ideas, thank you!
Neat device. I like it.
Amazing how old technology can teach us a lesson about elegant engineering.
Dorian McIntire Yes, although the modern achievements are very impressive, due to the amount of people involved, it has very scattered, hyper, unstable and anxiety-producing effects. People are wearing out. I can see it. Hell, I had to go back to an old dehumidifier since the the new ones are just chucked in the trash every 4 years (a little counter-productive to the sustainability rage) at $200 a pop. - meaning good enough of decisions are not being made. Politicians too far removed, expectations being too euphoric, company pressure, and the EPA being too impractical are making lots of stress.
I worked In a lab in the '70s, where an old chemist ran a different type of colometer (sp? ) as an analytical instrument. I never understood what was happening, but dissolved samples were put into a cell with mercury in 2 wells, and current was passed through it. He ran through a LOT of Hg. I just spent my boring days titrating with a burette, and a Ph meter.
Simple, yet cool.
Great video
looks like you went through hell getting that open lol
techatyou russian engineering man
+nezinot123 Soviet engineering
Mercury is such an interesting material.
When you said you cracked it open, you weren't kidding.
Great calculations. Where did you get this device?
Awe such a cool device! seen these built into gas discharge tubes!
"The Edison Chemical Meter
Edison set up his first power station in New York City at Pearl Street. The station began operation on September 4, 1882. In order to keep track of the electricity used by his customers, Edison designed the first electric wattmeter, called the "Chemical meter" ...
It was a crude device based on the principle of electroplating, developed by Michael Faraday. Faraday had found that the transfer of metal from one plate to another in an electrolytic bath was exactly proportional to the current. Edison's first meter held a small glass jar in which two copper plates were suspended in a solution of copper sulphate. The cover of the cell was arranged so that one of the plates was easily removable by means of an insulated clamp with a thumb screw; the other plate, which was thick and cylindrical in form, was intended to remain in the cell to allow the copper to be transferred from it to the other plate via electrolysis. An Edison employee would visit the meter periodically, remove the electrode and weigh it, and the customer would be billed accordingly.
While the concept worked well in theory, in practice it was inconvenient and not especially accurate. Worse, there was no way for a customer to independently confirm their consumption of electricity so their confidence in the device was not high. As a result the meters were replaced in short order, and very few can be found today."
www.sparkmuseum.com/METER_XFRMER.HTM
Fantástico !!
Very good. I have never seen one of those.
I like this video thumbs up ratio ! It shows how good this video is :D
Most interesting! I've got the same model and got curious about it, found your video doing research on this tech. Mine has a different voltage divider (2k7 to 100k) but other than that, it's identical, could use a bit of retr0brighting ;). Maybe I'll make a video on it too - definitely referencing yours.
In old homes there used to be similar looking completely passive linear meters stuck to the radiators to measure how much energy you used, always wondered how those worked....
Imagine my surprise when I found one of these inside my Apple Laswerwriter! It's form factor is like a fuse and is clipped into a fuse holder under the DC controller board. Guess they were still using these in Japan in 1986!
Имеются такие. Спасибо что разъяснил как этот счётчик работает. Thank you for explaining how it works
very cool how close the maths lines up even with a few guesses having to be made
Very cool, wish I had one to play with.
Available on ebay, search for 'Bidirectional elapsed hours meter', only a few dollars each.
Put power to it and watch it fo 500 hours. More economical than renting DVD's.
Awesome. I've never seen a counter like that. Very interesting.
Keep up the good work sir.. your videos are always full of interesting ideas.
I like how you usually show your work. It is a nice reminder of ideas from school a couple years ago...
Cool!
From a purely scientific/engineering point of view, this was a wonderfully educational video.
Side note: Mercury, like all the elements, is a natural substance. That is not to say it is "safe." All things can be VERY dangerous unders certain conditions. They can also be safe under others. The key is to be aware of what you are working with, handle it with due respect, and most importantly maintain a reasonable and factual attitude regarding the issues involved.
True, but mercury has a stigma attached because it was such a useful substance that it was found in way too much stuff that a fear of the substance is a necessary evil to keep people safe.
Michael Olsen I agree. The problem is the general public will just ignore it. Reluctantly, I have to give the EPA more credit for a job that must be done. - CFCs, leaded gasoline and mercury. Although I understand CO2 is a greenhouse gas, I'm not completely convinced there is good enough of a handle on the situation. I understand that a massive amount of fossil fuels have been burned in a small amount of time, but I am not certain it is enough of the story such as it is an inevitable process or cycle (which speeding it up is not desired, but is an inevitable outcome of population growth anyway). Do you have any comment on this?
It would be interesting to try to measure the position of the gap electronically by bouncing a pulse off the discontinuity in the mercury transmission line.
would have been really easy to put a diode bridge inside this thing to make it tamper-proof, so people couldn't reverse the polarity to run back the time
If this was on lathe, crane, pump, engine, or whatever, it was simply used for most likely maintenance records, and because nothing really belonged to the ppl but to the government in the former USSR, there was no need to tamper. it was simply pointless. The more hours you machine worked, the faster you get a newer one.
@@mrOnlinePolice But you could have become communist of the month by working 25 hours a day!
Hi Ben. Always stuff of interest on show. Thanks.
PS It seemed a shame to "smash" it!
very interesting
Huh, an electrochemical integrator. Could be interesting to use something like this as a battery fuel gauge.
There are ICs that you can buy that do essentially the same thing (counting coulombs) for measuring battery SoC. More accurate than measuring pack voltage, because it doesn't change with temperature etc.
This is something like what I had for a lamp hour meter on an old HPLC system.
coulometer a totally unexpected word.
I have used the word coulomb in place of cool ever since basic electronics and flash cards. (coulomb a unit of electrical energy.)
The space can't dissappear if its a hermetically sealed, it can probally be flicked back like the nurses used to do with mercury thermostats.
RANDOLPH TORRES "Tape recorders" were initially called "magnetophones". "Tele" must have meant "transferring between two places". "Video" has dropped the audio component (videograph?); Video conferencing equipment: Televideograph. Marketing can really screw up a sound foundation of language, and modern "professionals" (frequently) recklessly forge on with nitwit words e.g. ShamWow. Another pet-peeve of mine is lack of the hyphen in "spacetime" by educated people. It seems to very much underscore the concept such as "playtime". -Drives me nuts.
Very interesting device it is not the best to measure time but the physic behind it is interesting.
The video was great, as your always are. The thumb down was for wrecking that neat, previously usable, piece of history. Should have x-rayed it or something.
I want to be You when I grow up.
Any progress?
Wow, cudos to my highschool chemistry teacher. I actually understood the majority of that video. Now for more highschool. Then finally college, I mean engineering school.
1,038 Likes and 0 Dislikes. That has to just about be a CZcams record to have over a thousand likes and not a single dislike.
John Ratko It always starts out clean. Entropy sets in.
As of now there are two dislikes
Not too sure ,but when measuring the surface area (i'm guessing it is the surface area of the mercury) would it be more correct to use the formula for a sphere's surface area?
Could a circuit be designed that automatically reverses the polarity? If so, I wonder if it could have been used as a precursor to the quartz clock.
Another way these can be tampered with is to give them a jolt. This can dislodge the mercury gap, given the high density of mercury.
I saw this type of meter built into spectrophotometer lamps,a lot smaller though. Looked similar to this I remember the gap was red and can't remember if it looked like mercury in the tube.
How did you learn all this stuff?
can you please show us how those mercury timer switches are working? i know the principles but i have never ever seen one, we are still using them here in my country in the halls of buildings.
I was thinking, the way the Mercury moves across the gap from the right side to the left side is reminiscent of the way semi-conductors work.
(This one looks Russian. He said "12.6 volts", but it is marked "12.6 B" on the back.) These went out of style. With mercury inside, they don't meet RoHS. Curtis Instruments made them too, called "coulometer", "elapsed time indicator", "hourmeter", etc. Some dealers still list them, flagged "discontinued", but with small quantities in stock. They also show up in the usual online marketplaces. Like many discontinued items, prices range from closeout to gougery.
What a strange meter. I wonder who thought the idea up and what made them think about using a tube of mercury to do it.
A great companion to this would be a vibrating reed frequency meter.
Fran Blanche has a video on the vibrating reed frequency meter.
the front of the device indicates -10 celcius, which I assume is its operating specification. i just read about the first mercury superconductor. would negative 10 celcius allow that extra tenth of a current to pass through? (i wonder if the electrolyte is a common glycol)
I guessed about the same, based on the markings on the device, yours wasn't a bad guess either. well done, but I was faster :)
Nice demo. I saw these on ebay a few months ago - nice & cheap too.
Interesting how they came up with this concept. Do you know the year this was made?
I have an ~40 old signal gen with exact same culometer.
These used to be available fairly easily quite recently - they got killed by RoHS.
Area would be more like a half sphere because of the meniscus of the mercury, so likely would be larger than you calculated.
The area of the mercury/electrolyte interface would definitely be bigger than what's calculated, but that actually doesn't matter.
If someone think its Russian exclusive I saw much smaller one on U_matic Sony camera (scope part). I think in real manufacturing there wasn't so much math, just standard size glass tube and than calibration with resistors. thx for great video.
Dang! I wanted to enter this contest but I guess I'm too late.
I would expect that a small percentage of the mercury ions would only need one electron to be able to move, which would get the device closer to its goal of 500 hours.
I’ve seen them connected to old (big) laser tubes...
I always wondered how it worked.
What is the significance of 12.6V? It's a common charging voltage for lithium ion batteries, but it doesn't seem like this device and lion would overlap.
Reminds me of the crazy way Edison measured energy delivered.
you could make this pretty tamper proof by putting a diode in the back of it and potting the lot, it is a need electro-chemical solution, where most are electro-mechanical.
Sure is interesting-
I would expect the electrolyte to deteriorate over time, but seems not to be the case?
Baahye ;)
I get the concept, but I didn't see any mercury flowing to the other side of the gap. How is that possible?
The mercury atoms cross the gap as ions flowing through the electrolyte. Far too small to see.
You say that once the gap moves all the way to the end, the usage counter can't be used any more, but could you reverse it by applying a reversed voltage to the terminals?
No. The electrolyte gap moves by mercury transferring from one side of it to the other. He is talking about the electrolyte moving to the end of the mercury column. i.e. there would be no mercury on the other side of the electrolyte gap.
The Dude What happen if you shake it? you lose the gap forever or you can make it appear somewhere?
The Dude
Sorry, but clearly you don't know chemistry. It's not about Mercury transferring to Mercury, it's about electrons transferring to Mercury ions. So it should be that so long as there is an electrode on the other side of the electrolyte that does not contact both sides of the gap, by applying reverse voltage, the electrons and thus the ions will flow in the reverse direction, which should reverse the timer.
*****
NASA tested them to 20Gs without problem and there are patents that state " with a spherical spacing member about 0.3 mm (0.33 mm to be exact) in diameter placed in the electrolyte, shocks of even 1006 7m/sec did not cause the mercury to be broken in pieces"
elvishfiend
I have university level chemistry and physics. If you don't believe me or (or Ben) fell free to buy one from ebay and wreck it by allowing the electrolyte gap to reach the end of the capillary. Post your results on youtube.
Haven't i seen this before?
Wishing I had some practical application for this just so I could explain it to anyone who asked.
Will temperature affect this?