Vtg Weston\'s Direct-Reading Mil-Am-Meter Patented 1888/1890 Brass & Wood # 2558 For Sale
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Vtg Weston\'s Direct-Reading Mil-Am-Meter Patented 1888/1890 Brass & Wood # 2558:
$100.00
Vtg Antique Weston\'s Direct-Reading Mil-Am-Meter Patented 1888 Brass & WoodMy grandfather had a radio and refrigeration repair shop from the 1930s-1980s. I have many of his radios from his personal collection, which I will be listing. ThisWeston\'s Direct-Reading Mil-Am-Meteris also from his personal collection. Please check back for additional listings. I also have a lot of \"new old stock\" tubes, antique radios, testing equipment (including a Weston\'s Direct-Reading Volt Meter), microphones and manuals. Please check back if you\'re interested in any of them.
The plate on the top reads:Weston Electrical Instrument Co.Newark, N.J. U.S.A.Patented Nov. 6th 1888No. 2558
The plate on the side reads:Patented Nov. 6th 1888May 14 1889June 10 1890(It also has multiple patent numbers.)
The U.S. Geological Survey website states thatEdward Weston was a serious competitor of Thomas Edison in the development of electricity.They have a picture of a similar Weston Direct-Reading Ammeter on their website from their museum.
There is a website from the Weston Museum at the New Jersey Institute of Technology that has images of ammeters like this one and some more information about Weston. The website states:The NJIT library has a number of instruments and devices from Edward Weston\'s Newark laboratory. Edward Weston was an rival of Thomas Edison in the early development of electricity. He was also an early contributor to the founding of the Newark Technical School--which eventually became New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Weston Hall at NJIT is named for him and for his son--Edward Faraday Weston.
Here\'s some more information about Weston and his meters from the internet:
Edward Weston and the Weston Electrical Instrument Company introduced the first portable and direct-reading current and voltage meters in 1888-1893. Weston\'s inventions enabling these meters included: the first truly permanent magnets; temperature-insensitive conductors; low-resistance and non-magnetic springs; metal coil frames where induced eddy currents provided pointer damping (1887); the electric shunt (1893) for the measurement of large currents; and multiple current ranges in a single meter.
The late 1800’s was the dawn of the widespread use of electricity. Power companies were establishing themselves and building distribution systems to supply power for industrial and consumer uses. Street lighting using Arc lamps was introduced. The patent wars over the invention of the incandescent light bulb were fought as electric lighting became cost effective and a competitor to gas lighting. This rise required instruments to quantify the electricity. Efficiencies of motors and generators needed to be measured. Supplied voltages and currents needed to be controlled. Delivered power needed to be measured for billing. However, there was no efficient, calibratable and reproducible way to measure these quantities of electricity. Edward Weston invented solutions to all of the outstanding problems and brought the first reliable, repeatable, calibrated and portable instruments to market helping to enable the rapid expansion and acceptance of the use of electricity.
By creating a very stable, robust, calibrated and portable instrument Weston solved several key problems of prior meters including: the lack of the ability to calibrate them due to influence of earth’s magnetic field and the lack of permanent magnets, the sensitivity to resistive heating during measurement, the lack of accuracy and repeatability, and the complexity of making measurements. These meters became the standard of measurement internationally aiding in the rapid spread and acceptance of the use of electricity.
Edward Weston took a holistic and systematic approach to all of the outstanding issues and solved each of them to create “the first highly accurate, direct-reading, direct current, portable voltmeter. A complete line of devices for both direct current and alternating current soon followed.”
Others working in this area managed improvements, but none approached the scope of the improvements incorporated into these meters.
These instruments contained the first truly permanent magnets, a prerequisite for meters to be calibrated and given a true scale. The material science included optimizing the iron alloys to hold their magnetization, establishing the magnetization through repeated hysteresis cycles to only about 2/3 of the saturation magnetization, and stabilization with a Weston developed heat treatment. The electrical science involved creating a very nearly complete magnetic circuit with minimal air gap so that the reluctance of the gap created negligible drag on the magnetic fields. Weston accomplished this by using a piece of soft iron on the end of each pole piece that was shaped to match a concentrically mounted soft iron cylinder. The gap between these pieces was where the coil rotated and averaged only .05” in Weston’s instruments. The curvature of these pole pieces ensured that the measuring coil moved in a uniform magnetic field ensuring linearity of the scale.
These instruments were of such precision and accuracy that they were adopted as the standards by nearly every large United States company. They were viewed so favorably in Germany that they were chosen by the Official Testing Committee of the Frankfurt International Electrical Exposition for their work testing all electrical equipment presented at the exposition in 1891. Their importance in Japan is clearly indicated by the title \"Weston was the Icon of Meters in Japan\" of Dr. Eiju Matsumotos talk at the 2007 IEEE Conference on the History of Electric Power
Please see pictures. This antique meter is from my grandfather\'s radio and refrigeration repair shop, so it\'s been used and has some scrapes and scratches on the wood. It is heavy brass with a wood base. The brass is tarnished, but I didn\'t know if you would want it polished, so I didn\'t polish it. You can see glimpses of the design on the brass through the tarnish (I know that there\'s a design on it because I have a similar Weston\'s volt meter that is not tarnished, and I can see that it\'s the same design.) The glass is cracked. I haven\'t done any testing on the meter. The meter has been stored at my mom\'s house, and she used to smoke more than 13 years ago.The meter weighs approximately 4 pounds and 10 ounces.It is approximately 6 3/4\" x 6\" x 3 1/4\".Will ship within 2 days of payment...and I try to ship faster than that.
Tracking/delivery confirmation is included in shipping cost.
Will combine shipping on multiple purchases.
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