"Kiltedpadre" (kiltedpadre)
03/09/2018 at 16:57 • Filed to: None
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"Kiltedpadre" (kiltedpadre)
03/09/2018 at 16:57 • Filed to: None | 12
| 18 |
Just thought some others might enjoy seeing the inner workings of a traffic light control box from 1965. This was still in service in the town where I work until today.
It controlled the two lights on Main Street. That’s why the tumbler had two stacks of red, green, yellow, and black disks.
The main electrical panel. The bulb is there to keep the box warm in the winter.
The timer system. It’sbasically a more sophisticated version of an old style light timer.
This tumbler rotates and you can see the contacts that send power to the different bulbs of the streetlights.
The man that was installing the new control said he services 2500 traffic signals, and this was the only one of this style still in service. Replacement parts went out of production sometime in the late 80’s and spares from controllers that other jurisdictions replaced kept this one going till now.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 17:20 |
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Interesting that it uses automotive style fuses and not breakers.
Echo51
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
03/09/2018 at 17:24 |
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The glass tubes? They’re common in the back of a bunch of mains equipment too in a little screw-cap holder and on-PCB in audio gear aswell.
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Echo51
03/09/2018 at 17:28 |
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Right, audio gear now that you mention it. I’m just not used to seeing an automotive style AGC block in anything recent. Of course, my brother works somewhere in “medium voltage”, which is to say he handles fuses the size of a baby’s arm, where breakers aren’t as practical...
Urambo Tauro
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 17:36 |
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That’s really neat! Thank you for posting this.
So what becomes of the old one now?
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Kiltedpadre
> Urambo Tauro
03/09/2018 at 17:41 |
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It’s going to end out with our surplus equipment. This unit and the spare parts we have for it will end out in an auction in the future.
nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 17:46 |
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Oh! I’ll try to remember the next time I go out to an old VDoT cabinet. Some of the controllers and cards they used were impressive how they actually managed to operate for so long.
user314
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 17:47 |
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Cool. The Crouse-Hinds company manufactured traffic signals and controllers from 1897 to 1981, when it was acquired by Cooper Industries, who sold the traffic products division to Traffic Control Technologies of Liverpool, New York, who then sold the division to Peek Traffic Transyt of Tallahassee, Florida.
Cooper later bought the streetlights division of Westinghouse, and applied the Crouse-Hinds name to those products until Cooper was bought by Eaton, who now uses the C-H name for various industrial, explosion-proof electrical equipment, instrumentation, and commercial products.
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Kiltedpadre
> nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
03/09/2018 at 17:54 |
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Sounds great. I always find this stuff fascinating.
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Kiltedpadre
> user314
03/09/2018 at 17:57 |
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Thanks so much for the additional information.
Svend
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 18:08 |
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This is so cool.
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Kiltedpadre
> Svend
03/09/2018 at 18:23 |
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If it hadn’t been broken I would’ve taken a video of it in operation. It had me fascinated.
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Svend
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 18:29 |
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When you see something like this working, it’s like seeing a piece of the past alive in the present.
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user314
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 18:36 |
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Thanks for the great pics of something unusual. I love learning about esoteric stuff like this, and Wiki is a godsend for it.
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user314
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 18:40 |
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Hopefully it’ll go to someone who’ll pay to have it restored. I loved when stuff like this showed up on American Restoration.
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Kiltedpadre
> user314
03/09/2018 at 18:49 |
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If it fails to sell at auction I already know I’ll offer them slightly over scrap value and make rebuilding it a pet project of mine.
barnie
> Urambo Tauro
03/09/2018 at 21:17 |
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I bet there’s a town out there in ‘murica that still uses this system. Could buy this one, with spares, and keep their’s running for a few more years.
These old, analog systems are so robust that they can keep working for years with bad or no maintenance. Would love to have a use for this. But, today you can buy a SOC and a handful of chips for a few bucks and emulate all of these old systems. When they burn out in a few years the cost to replace is still cheaper than finding a part for the old analog system. Sniff, I miss those days when a can of oil and a brush would bring a thing like this back to life instead of replacing lots of little boards...
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Kiltedpadre
> barnie
03/09/2018 at 22:50 |
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That’s one of the things I like. If I can source a few small components I have no doubt I could rebuild this whole unit. It would be a very time consuming process, but getting that tumbler system running again would be very rewarding. Much more satisfying than sliding in a new chipset.
Sadly, since the only backup was setting up the main intersections in town as four way stops they can’t give me that time. After having two separate components fail in the same week the cost for a pro that could do it faster would’ve really added up.
MINIGTI
> Kiltedpadre
03/09/2018 at 23:30 |
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I love elevator machine room videos of old mechanical controllers. I love this guy’s channel: