Barn Find - What Is It - 1940's? Mystery Device Teardown!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

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[@XPFTP]

time portel

[@Daveyk021]

Early laser eye surgery tool for detached retinas?

[@donwilson6617]

definitely correct

[@myballwilson]

Railroad signaling light

[@American-Motors-Corporation]

Well now the late forties into the 50s would not be the last of the braided cloth cord... My grandmother's house was constructed in the mid-to-late fifties and it had that stuff running through it they replaced a lot of it in the 1970s when they did some rewiring but there was still a little bit of it the ran in the house... And that's here in central Ohio!

[@thisolesignguy2733]

This is an egg candle. I have one that my grandma used for many years. It used a 120V low watt light bulb that's very similar to a car tail light bulb. My uncle switched out the transformer for a 12V plug transformer and put an LED light in it. The adjustment screw lets you move the bulb in & out to see the embryos better or make the green lens brighter. The side hole is for setting the egg sideways to see if the egg is fertilized, and the green filter lets you see if the egg is spoiled, curdled, missing a yolk, or has double yolks. seeing a double yolk is kinda freaky, the green light makes it look like it has cartoon eyes lol.

[@tonyking9235]

HO THATS INTERESTING. BUT NOW IT MAKES MY GUESS WRONG . BUT NICE TO KNOW WHAT IT WAS USED FOR . . THANKS .

[@andrewsloane2064]

Makes sense.

[@truthsRsung]

I think it's a bit funny how the terminology for a device doesn't change when the technology that makes it work advances. Horseless carriage didn't stick for long, but I still hear people call a flashlight, a torch.

[@ronb6182]

That was my answer as well. We had a brooder that had a candle device to check eggs as well ours you hold the device up to a standard lightbulb. 73

[@Red_Whitenblu]

That was my guess. It was in a barn, what else would it be?

[@romancharak3675]

In the late 1950s, when I was just a we lad, my father used this lamp everyday to grade eggs. We lived in Toronto and my father sold eggs to grocery stores and bakeries. Brings back memories.

[@danieldyer1]

My guess is the device is an egg candling lamp, used to shine a bright light through eggs to examine what is inside.

[@insAneTunA]

Same here.

[@JakePulliam]

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Some way to get a nice tight beam for candling. Not sure what good the green filter is but maybe it made it easier to see something?

[@yusynthman]

I second that.

[@cheft]

Yes, this is for eggs. My grandfather had one that was similar. You need a low watt bulb that won't get too hot and damage the eggs.

[@JakePulliam]

Now, after some googling, I guess green light makes it easier to see blood spots. So that and finding it a barn convinces me it's for candling.

[@Satchmoeddie]

It's a fancy egg candling lamp with the open hole for white light candling of eggs and the greenish filter is for checking the eggs for blood spots. The lower voltage is so you don't zap yourself if an egg breaks and some eggshells are super super thin.

[@Equiluxe1]

My father was a professional photographer, he had crates of those big flash bulbs some bigger than the one you have there made by Philips in Holland. On one occasion I went with him as an assistant to an outside shoot I held the reflectors with the flash bulbs in them at about six feet to one side, they went of with quite a loud sound followed by a crackling sound as the glass inside the blue plastic film covering them broke up and the film shrank. As the shoot was on a public street people near by jumped from the sound and bright light, quite fun as a teenager to watch their reaction. The wire inside is pure magnesium in a pure oxygen atmosphere.

[@wardduffield489]

As a teenager my friend's father what the contents of at the front camera store inventory we're boxes of large flashbulbs with a standard screw base which would fit a household lamp.

[@wardduffield489]

One afternoon we turned off the main circuit breaker to the house replaced every light bulb in the house with a flashbulb and turned all the lamps on when they came home after dark and flip the inside switch we closed the main breaker. From the amount of light we could see through the basement windows reflecting off the neighborhood, they must have looked much like an atomic bomb went off inside the house what a great prank!

[@kaboom4679]

Oldie but a goodie . The gag is you disable the main light so that the mark enters , hits the switch , nothing . Mark then goes to the next closest switch or table lamp , hits the switch , and , POOF , 30 minutes of seeing a big white spot and little else . They ALWAYS look directly at the second light if the first fails . It is an inviolable quirk of human nature . This is particularly brutal in college settings during mid terms and finals .

[@kaboom4679]

These are still very popular for some photographic applications , such as photographing in large and very hard to light areas like caves and mines that really cannot be illuminated properly even with modern strobes .

[@yelyab1]

They were probably shell shocked from WW2.?

[@yelyab1]

Hard to believe a young man growing up in the heart land of Canada never went for a weekend ride in the prairie land and mom would insist on getting a few dozen farm fresh eggs. Usually if it was in the AM, the lady if the farm would collect the eggs , candle them and sell them. If you wanted you could watch. I got to see this in Michigan farm country on our way to our lake cottage on Lake Huron. In the 50s, the farmers were still using candles. My mother had to explain the facts of chicken life to me a 5 years old, I had no idea what she was talking about, I’m still not sure, I’m 75.

[@hadibq]

interesting!! TY for sharing... such thing never touched a land like morocco 🙂

[@geronimo957]

🤣🤣

[@slidetbone]

Not everyone gets exposed to farm implements. Same for those that do not know what a MOSFET is. Such is life and we learn as we move on.

[@yelyab1]

@Doco KD7OCO I heard that some of the hens didn’t give up their eggs too easily. Had a friend that bought a few layers and had to buy a set of elbow length leather welders chaps to get the eggs. My mom use to spend summers on a far and she had to get the eggs and ran into some aggressive hens. She also said they kept a rooster that would go after little kids. It went after one of the grandchildren and it became dinner.

[@Robert08010]

Did she ever explain why they cross the road?

[@stevie-ray2020]

Agree with others that this appears to be an egg-candling lamp. Using a green filtered-light will make anything red (blood) inside the eggs show up much darker, & as that hole would be for venting excess heat from the reflector-housing, my guess is that the highest wattage vehicle-bulb would've been used (& focused to achieve the ideal beam)! What's also interesting is that with this design it's made so that the egg is held with your fingers with the light shining into the egg from the side towards your palm to reduce glare, plus it can be screwed to a bench & rotated to accommodate those who are left-handed!

[@jayreiter268]

I wonder how they candle eggs now. I am 81 and never had a bloody egg until three weeks ago. l was lucky it was the first egg cracked. You would think it would be easy with the technology now.

[@danbrit9848]

@@jayreiter268 both more advanced yet exactly the same somehow...now its led lights and a camera with a computer to analyze ...but in reality its rilly the exact same thing still just modernized same method and all

[@jonbutcher9805]

Why would you require such a transformer. Seems overkill for a lite bulb. That much power you could hard boil an egg.

[@jayreiter268]

@@jonbutcher9805 That transformer just looks large enough to supply a few amps to lite that bulb. Probably around 12 to 24 VA. You need a transformer for isolation. Ground return problems were prevalent on farms.

[@jonbutcher9805]

@@jayreiter268 makes more sense now it's explained. Thanks

[@inspector1794]

You made me realize just how old I am with this talk of flash bulbs. It's ok I can accept my age and I well remember and used many a flash bulb and flash cube back in the day. I saved for a long time to get my first electronic strobe flash. Time sure passes when you are having fun. Thanks for the memories!

[@congerthomas1812]

Right, would pick up old radios and TVs, take all the tubes out and check them at the drug store rack. Buy one or 2 tubes and fix them.

[@cloudrdr]

That "whirring" noise it made while charging up the next shot. Those was the days...

[@bodacious2276]

That's a unilateral phase detractor from a Rockwell Retro Encabulator. Great find!

[@matthewhall6288]

How are you able to differentiate it from the multilateral phase detector? The Rhymann tertiary rheostat is blocked by the amplified muon collimator.

[@thomasmoore8142]

Very funny! it is worth it to you tube search for "unilateral phase detractor from a Rockwell Retro Encabulator" and watch .

[@bodacious2276]

@@matthewhall6288 By the absence of a drawn reciprocation dingle arm. The later multilateral phase detector had the dingle arm as part of the unit.

[@oscar_charlie]

@@matthewhall6288 also easy to tell by the presence of the marzel vanes.

[@Robert08010]

With nano pulse laser I'll wager.

[@woxallaviation4640]

Your comment about static and flash bulbs reminds me of an event that purportedly happened at a missile site I was stationed at in Germany. We had a high power acquisition radar set to detect incoming threats. I forget the power output, but the klystron stood about 6 feet or taller. One day after the antenna had been rotated downward from its normal tilt for maintenance it was returned to a position slightly lower than it should have been. Our unit PX was about 200 meters from the radar set. On the first powered up rotation every flash cube in the PX blew. People who witnessed the event told me the chain link fence around the fire control section was sizzling, and the mercury vapor lamps in the nearby village (maybe a kilometer of more) flashed each time the antenna pointed that direction.

[@postcardshackpostcards2369]

😮

[@robm18]

My grandparents had one similar to that for checking eggs for blood spots.

[@adamnaylor2556]

Its an egg candle, a way to tell if an egg has an embryo( fertilized) or not. The green lens is used because green light works better than normal full spectrum light on brown eggs.

[@MichaelBeeny]

As a very young lad in the 60s I found in my grandfather's bits bin one of those flash lamps. Of course, I had to apply a battery to it. At first nothing happened, but more volts did the trick. A very bright flash came from it, I could see stars for hours after. Lucky I was not holding it as the glass was quite blistered and deformed. It was the first and only time I did this!

[@acefeeley7836]

My wife's grandfather was a chicken farmer in Massachusetts. She says he checked the eggs with a bright light that came out of a wooden box with a carry handle on it. The light was green as well. She was under the impression that the green light wavelength was better for checking out what was inside the egg.

[@DavidLeeKersey]

They used green as it the complement of Red. So if you shine green light through a egg the red blood vessels will show up better with higher contrast.

[@RaymondSwanson-u9y]

@@DavidLeeKersey It's how smart watches read heart rates today. Pulses in the blood vessels.

[@Joe-ir4cd]

Those large flash bulb's were used for architecture and interior design photography. Because they have a standard AC bulb profile, a photographer could use them in a decorative light fixture. Like, a table lamp or wall lamp. Everything up to chandeliers and spot lights ! I used them for outside/exterior fill lighting on building's and factory's too !

[@tadonplane8265]

I’ve seen flashbulbs like that, with screw bases. I was part of a technical team on a project in which one of the requirements of the project was that the event had to be filmed with high speed cameras. The event was so fast that it completely took place in the timeframe of a flashbulb. The high speed cameras used then were 16mm film cameras called quarter framers because they shot four frames in the same length of film that one standard frame would take up. These cameras could go through a 400 foot roll of 16mm film in under a second. The film was going so fast that in broad daylight with the camera wide open the film was not exposed. It took nearly half the roll of film for the camera to get it up to the proper speed, all of which came out black after processing. A plethora of magnesium flashbulbs like the one in your video were fired during the event, capturing the motion of it on film, then the remainder of the roll, nearly the second half, wasn’t exposed either. After processing, 95% of the film went in the trash. It was all black even though it went through a wide open camera in broad daylight. That’s how powerful those flashbulbs are. The setup for each event was time consuming, there were six cameras on each. Timing of the event, the trigging of the cameras and the triggering of the flashbulbs was so critical. Every once and a while, during setup a camera would false trigger, waisting setup time and film which would make the photographer cuss. These cameras would shred the tail end of the roll into bits and have to be cleaned as well as reloaded. The results though were astounding!

[@SpaghettiEnterprises]

That's a really fascinating story!

[@vk3zen-rfdesign980]

initial guess is a railway indicator lamp and possibly repurposed as an egg candler. the egg candler we had was similar but powered and mounted differently.

[@GilmerJohn]

Yep.. I believe that it's an egg candler. The two mirrors are likely "elliptical" and concentrates the light at the hole.

[@1shARyn3]

Used to use the flash bulbs on cameras during the 50s and early 60s -- but the ones I used had bayonet (vs screw) base, (usually made by Westinghouse or Sylvania). Filaments were of fine magnesium wire

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Thanks for sharing your story Gwen!

[@SpinStar1956]

When I was growing up in the 50’s & 60’s, we had an Argus C3 camera. It had an attachable flash unit that took flash bulbs. The flash bulbs were tinted blue for color correction so that you could use daylight film indoors. I always remember my dad either licking the bottom, base of the bulb, or telling me to, to make sure that it made good connection, so that we wouldn’t waste a frame of film. Maybe that’s where I got my taste for solder! Those were certainly the days, but beautifully captured on Ektachrome film…

[@Rob2]

The flash my father used had single-flash bulbs that were smaller than that, like 0.5" diameter 1" long, and they had a press-fit where the base of the bulb had some formed glass part that was pushed in the flash unit, and two wires were folded back and connected to contacts. So you pressed that in, took a photo, and then you had to take it out (it would be very hot) and put in another one for the next photo. This worked with a 22.5V battery and of course a connection to the camera, which had a small coaxial connector for that. It was much later that camera's got a "hot shoe" to set off a flash, or that those "cubes" were introduced. The flash unit my father had, had a reflector of about 5" diameter consisting of a number of segments that would fold together in a ring shape.

[@deker0954]

A company that installed the protection systems for the air cleaners of a plant I worked at used old new stock camera flash bulbs. These were installed in the circuit for the firing of the part that burst a metal disk allowing powder to extinguish fire in a metal filter housing. The bulb was there to test the firing circuit during commissioning. The company had bought all remaining stock of bulbs.

[@blackIce504]

Thank you for showing us these devices and i have never seen a flash bulb up close.

[@ronbolak]

This does appear to be an old egg candler and the green lens makes it easy on the eyes and better for blood detection.l

[@WayneKuharski]

Possibly part of an automotive wheel alignment rig, the angle adjustment and swivel allow adjustment and a slotted mask disc would be inserted under the spring clip inside to project to a target mounted on a wheel. the rotating drum would adjust the line for camber or kingpin measurements.

[@Driver-UK]

Absolutely fascinating ! We need more of this . I had to avoid looking at the comments first to see what it is .

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[@davidg4288]

I'm glad I watched to the end, I had no idea what that was. But then I never raised chickens, my grandfathers would have recognized that egg candler instantly. At first I was thinking sun lamp and the transformer was a ballast, but nope, not at 6 volts, and a tiny green filter. Someone in high school (1970's) found a whole box of those Edison base flash bulbs and had great fun tormenting the custodian by screwing them into light sockets in various maintenance areas. The custodian started inspecting every bulb with a flashlight before turning it on. If you had photography equipment those bulbs would fire on D cells, no AC power required.

[@richardmassoth8237]

I also go along with the egg candling device. Perhaps the colored glass lens was a method to deal with different colored eggshells, to obtain a more consistent appearance from the egg. The focusing mechanism would have perhaps been to be able to candle eggs from large to small (e.g., quail to chicken to duck to turkey) eggs and cover the entire egg. As for the stand, that looks like one style of ring stand clamp base that the transformer is mounted on. It could be mounted on a bench or on the wall. You don't want to let an incubated egg cool too much when candling, and you don't want to sell eggs that have started developing a blood spot, so a bright light with little heat is ideal. Modern egg candling devices use 800 lumens of white light from an LED to solve some of the issues that this antique attempted to solve. As for the flash bulbs, they were filled with a magnesium alloy wire that literally burned. The bulbs got quite hot while flashing. The large bulb you have would likely have been used in a photography studio, and it's just a single-use bulb. Even with needing to carry lots of bulbs, it still beats the use of the even older flash powder technology for photography.

[@Electric-Bob]

Funny...the other day I was going through some stuff and I found one of those Bulbs with all the Fine Wire in it! Never saw one before, then you show one! Thanks.

[@brianpercival1829]

Railway use, Track ahead is clear. Another one with red filter would be used to stop at rail siding. Focus to pinpoint the light down the track for further distance to allow time to notify train driver.

[@1pcfred]

This object wasn't made for outdoor use. It is for indoor use only.

[@makerspace533]

The Edison base flash bulbs were very common back in the 60's and earlier. If you wanted to make a night-time photograph of something big, like O. Winston Link and his trains, this is the sort of thing you had to use. I had access to a large number of these bulbs when in school. It was great fun to sneak into a friend's dorm room and replace the normal bulb with one of the big flash bulbs. You can actually hear these bulbs going off.

[@CaptainZuurpruim]

I Love that kind of very old stuff. The movement of the lamp is probably to find the perfect spot of the bulb wrt the reflector (the housing). This reflector acts more or less is a parabola-mirror. Quite neat to optimise the output!

[@hugoromeyn4582]

The tag is in a very good condition because of the waxy greasy stuff on it. I Know a guy who bought a 12 Watt stereo Bocama Lafayette tube amplifier a couple of years ago and that amp was from a "chain smokers residence" to put it mildly 😂 It was completely dark/brown and covered with tar. After one night of deep cleaning, that amplifier looked like it came straight out of the factory. That layer of tar had protected the front plate so well that even things that looked like scratches disappeared. They where literally in the tar-ish coating, not in the front plate.

[@slink1957]

La Brea Tar Pits. Best preservative ever!

[@DanielGBenesScienceShows]

I was mesmerized by the old square flash cubes. As a kid I discovered it was fun to set them off with a capacitor charged by a 9v. The charged capacitor seemed more magical than just the battery. My friends thought I was a wizard. (Funny that later in life I would be called a “modern day” Mr. Wizard by a couple of TV networks). My grandmother was pretty forgiving, considering how many of her flash cubes I popped off.

[@SenileOtaku]

I still have a few 3-packs of those Instamatic flashcubes. Used to have a few of the Instamatic cameras, but I think I lost them in a house fire.

[@Robert08010]

@@SenileOtaku Just the other day I saw a photo online that was heavily tinted red and was a squarish format picture, so I asked was this a 126 Instamatic pic from 1974. It was! Well... '75 but close enough to get a laugh.

[@MrVeryCranky]

There were also "magicubes" which like flash cubes contained 4 bulbs each. Rather than being initiated by a battery voltage, these had a spring loaded wire which struck the single pin supporting the bulb somehow firing the bulb. There was no power source involved and they could be fired just by lightly pressing the exposed spring wire with any object until it cleared it's retaining pin and struck the mounting pin.

[@DanielGBenesScienceShows]

@@SenileOtaku I’m sorry you had a house fire. That is such a horrific experience.

[@DanielGBenesScienceShows]

@@MrVeryCranky I remember Magicubes but I didn’t know there were spring-fired versions. That’s pretty cool. I only remember the ones set off electrically by a camera. I wonder what the firing mechanism was. Perhaps some primer material.

[@patmancrowley8509]

When my grandfather, God Bless his soul, went to work as an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in the 1920's thereabouts, the flash bulbs would screw into the flash fitting like your standard light bulb. One of the reporters was an occasional drunkard so someone, while the reporter in question was out drinking, snuck into the reporters apartment and replaced all of the light bulbs with flash bulbs. I still chuckle at the thought of his surprised reaction. What a hoot. What a beautiful practical joke!

[@MikeFairman]

I think it is a signal lamp & the cutaway is for illuminating a sign above it

[@kyleblevins1515]

I kinda am into theater history. As this is an egg examination unit the green gel is actually made from gel as in gelatin. Yes jello. Within food color. Of course gel was poured into baking sheets and Dried The colors in old movies are so intense b cause of the of the colors of the gels in the lightning on the staging grid. She size of gel sheets are still the same size today as the baking sheets. They would dry and crack need to be replaced daily an many sets The wave length of lime green is perfect for this application.

[@billharris6886]

The flash bulb is the type most commonly used with the Speed Graphic press camera the reporters used. These were used from the late 1920's until the late 1950's when obsoleted by the electronic xenon strobe flash. Prior to this flash bulb, photographers used flash powder, which was very dangerous. This flash bulb is only for B&W photos, the bulbs made for color film were dyed blue for color correction. Today's trivia: The Speed Graphic flash bulb unit was modified and used as the Jedi Light Saber in the Star Wars movies.

[@dashcamandy2242]

I had a Kodak Instamatic that used flashcubes. My Fisher Price 110mm camera used the Flip Flash cartridges. In high school marching band one year, our field show's theme was the music of John Williams. Our drum solo was a medley of Star Wars songs, and at the climactic moment every band member triggered a flashcube taped to their instrument with a paperclip to represent the explosion of the Death Star and scattered across the field like shrapnel. Sounds beautiful, looked amazing from the stands. Absolute crowd-pleaser. From my perspective: tip the snare drum back, fumble with the paperclip on the flashcube that is taped to the front shell, set it off in my eyes, spin around (holding the drum tipped back still) and run like mad to the opposite sideline in seconds flat. Hope I ended up in the right "cluster" of bandmates so that I could make my next mark as the entire band reformed - and now the drum major is somewhere in the temporary blind spot. 🤣

[@challenger2ultralightadventure]

Egg Candling lamp. I remember those way back in the 60's when I was a wee lad.

[@ilionreactor1079]

We used to use giant flashbulbs, about the size of a 300w warehouse lightbulb, for our rock band's light show. One small venue had them so close to the stage it gave me a "sunburn" on my face!

[@DrZippo01]

I think it's pieced together from multiple parts (3 main) that originally had nothing to do with each other. But.. if you look closely above the nomenclature tag, there is something stamped into the front cover of the transformer housing right at the lip. Maybe a date/place of manufacturing?

[@lotsabirds]

Hello from another O'Rourke!

[@keithnoneya]

Wow I remember using some of this equipment in my time in the U.S. Navy from the late 70' to the late 90's and after working for them as a civilian Avionics Technician. Thanks for the show Mr. Carlson. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya

[@terrym1065]

That item I have no clue about but flash bulbs I used plenty of. From individual "blue dot" to Magic Cube to countless others, was a fun time in photography. Also used individual small "blue dot" flash bulbs to ignite amateur rocket motors with, done right it was instant launch. Interesting piece and I'm sure somebody will know exactly what it is. Thanks for the video. 73

[@machintelligence]

Flash cubes used a mechanically fired primer to ignite the bulb. Other types of flash obviously used electricity but they were not super easy to ignite. Most flash units had a 12 V or so battery that charged a capacitor in order to get enough oomph to fire the bulb.

[@terrym1065]

@@machintelligence Exactly. We used remote ignition with 12V automotive batteries to energize the bulbs, worked good. Obviously they became dinosaurs and disappeared.

[@DigitalMediaCanada]

Thanks. I remember candling eggs with my grandma in behind a dark wool curtain and looking for the dark spots inside. It was a thrill doing it for this young boy. It seemed like magic looking inside the egg. I remember hers was in a box shaped frame.

[@Michel-7.7.7]

Since the device followed you all the way home, it's probably a "find out where curious electro engineers live" kinda thing

[@dmzackk]

I love your videos! Totally reminds me of my grandfather's shop, with his Atwater-Kent and other early radios on his shelf.

[@foureyedchick]

I think that this is some sort of stage light for use in theatres in the earlier half of the 20th century. However, it is probably not older than the 1950s. Why? Because the primary of the transformer is rated at 120v. In the 1950s, America was still using 110v, and started transitioning to 120v.

[@jimseals8659]

Way back in the 1960's one of my friends Dad was a Staff Photographer for the Oklahoma City Times. He used large flash bulbs like that one with a 4X5 format Speed Graphic for photographing accident scenes.

[@kuhrd]

I think you are on the right track as far as this being an egg candleing lamp. My grandfather had one with the transformer integrated an outer box but it had a similar setup including a green filter to help look for blood spots. Depending on the egg color you don't need a ton of light if you are looking at the eggs in a resonably dark room.

[@samgrieg]

Just curious, what was the point of doing that?

[@kuhrd]

@@samgrieg The purpose of candling eggs is to tell if the eggs are fertilized and also to monitor embryo development. Candling is necessary if you are raising chickens from incubated eggs since you can have an embryo die or an unfertilized egg begin to rot and that can cause other eggs to die if the egg explodes and contaminates other eggs in the incubator. Candling fresh eggs can also help give you peace of mind if selling them to others as you can catch any outliers and you can determine the age of the egg by how small or large the air pocket in the shell is. This also allows the eggs to be graded into the standard catagories you see in the store.

[@samgrieg]

@@kuhrd Thank you for your detailed response.

[@Murgoh]

I have a few of those old style flash bulbs and a Kalart flash unit that takes them. Haven't used any but thinking of getting some more and trying them with my 40:s Graflex 4x5" sheet film camera.The problem is they are not easily available in Europe and shipping from USA is rather expensive. The clear ones are for black and white film, the blue ones for daylight balanced color film. The flash cubes were very common back in the 70:s when I was a child, I took many pictures with a cheap pocket camera using 110 film cartridges and flash cubes.

[@frankowalker4662]

I was wondering if the hole in the reflector was to suspend a specimen, (leaf, insect or a slide), between the lamp and the lense to project it onto a wall as a teaching aid. Hence the focus screw at the back. I imagine it would come with different filters and lenses you could swap in the front spring loaded besel. Only a guess, though.

[@jodymorgan9869]

You look at Electronics and you think about how this and that makes sense but you really don't have an idea until somebody shows you. That's what I appreciate about the knowledge passed on two others to the point that someone can actually imagine in their minds how something is supposed to run and operate it in your mind with the knowledge of how things are supposed to work.

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

I was always perplexed by the physics of the MAGICUBE flash cubes that had no connective wiring or circuitry, just a little metal tang that would pop up out of the camera into the filament momentarily. Maybe there was a piezo inside the camera making charge at that instant. Never took my Kodak apart to explore that far because my parents would have killed me.

[@AcmeRacing]

I was able to trigger Magicubes with anything that would push the metal spring off the pin that held it back. Not sure how, but the impact from the spring triggered the bulb.

[@Chris_the_Muso]

It was even simpler than that. If you looked closely at the base you could see then was a bit of spring loaded wire in the slot on each side. That little tab that popped out of the top of the camera pushed the spring off the nub that was holding it. The released wire struck a small rod coated in fulminate. It's probably the same chemical as was used in firearm percussion primers. You could set them off by pushing anything suitable into the slot to fire the spring but yeah as kids we were warned that doing something like that would be met with parental displeasure of the highest order. The Magicube used zirconium wire rather than magnesium - I'm not sure why but I suspect it might be because it improved reliability with a fulminate initiator. I never knew one to fail.

[@nickolaswilcox425]

@@AcmeRacing i would guess the same concept as a grill striker or other electric sparkers that work without batteries, get the right combo of metals and when they hit eachother hard enough they let out a jolt of electricity

[@kenmohler4081]

It was pyrotechnic. The impact struck a primer-like ignition device.

[@DarrellLarose]

It was fired by percussion, one could carefully extract the bulb from the Magic cube and flip the bulb when it hit the floor it would fire.

[@annfarmer9704]

I remember the cube flashes, there also used to be a bar of 5 single use flashes that was kind of awkward when on top of some of the smaller 120 film cameras...The old polaroids too. I used to love looking at the blue glass cube flashes when they were spent. They looked like ice cubes to me how the center had all these fine opaque crystal like white structures, then as it got closer to the perimeter of the cube it would be the "clear" blue glass and the many cracks (fractures).... Reminded me of ice cubes. Each one was unique in it's explosion pattern. I loved the noise that they made too. A high frequency build up noise to a poof crunch. Then we got treated to a spots show for a minute or two. I believe the bulb style came in a blue color for a bit as well. The good old days..... You couldn't tell how your pictures turned out till they came back from the developers about a week or so after dropping off the film.,.... Had to have trust in your ability with a camera, and patience to wait out development time. No instant reward.,... No selfies..... Unless you wanted a closeup out of focus picture of the inside of your nostril. Nobody wasted money on risky shots like that. Physical photo albums,,,, slide projector shows after Sunday family dinner...,. Another upside down one?! Shadow puppets while the carousel was changed. Wish I could go back to visit just one of those nights.

[@hotpuppy1]

From the looks of it, the device should use a 6 volt headlamp bulb. Regarding the flash bulb, clear was for B&W film and blue was for color. They are coated to keep the glass from shattering when set off. That magnesium (I think) wire inside does get HOT! One of my dad's cameras used that size flash bulb. They are BRIGHT when set off. I have an older flashbulb that is the size of a 150 watt light bulb and it has what looks like foil shards in it.

[@danbarker1079]

Yeah. 25 VA vs the unknown wattage of the bulb (taillight?). Let's use an appropriate bulb for that tranny!

[@machintelligence]

The foil shards burned longer so as to keep the light produced for a long enough time to accommodate a focal plane shutter operating at high shutter speeds. The two curtains of the shutter were not open at the same time at those speeds so a standard flash bulb would only expose part of the film. Smaller focal plane bulbs had the magnesium as a solid lump in the center of the bulb.

[@chronos1002]

I agree with many other comments here; I'd bet that this is an egg candler; and the different coloured inserts would help you compensate for different egg shell colours and thicknesses, or to help improve the contrast and resolution of what you are trying to observe within the egg (colour contrast is still used in Biology and microscopy). It might also be a way of attempting to limit the disturbance that the bright light would have on the developing embryo; as it is good policy to limit egg candling as much as possible. So maybe different light colours were considered "less disturbing", along the same idea as film being developed in a "dark room" using red light, since film emulsions were least sensitive to Red light. The inner back portion looks like a parabolic mirror; as in a parabolic surface is used to either focus all signals striking the surface to a single point (eg. a Satellite dish focuses signals onto the receiver), OR, if a signal source is placed at the focal point, then the signal is instead directionally reflected away in a column (eg. a vehicle headlight works this way to focus light ahead of the vehicle). if you change the position of a signal source away from the focal point, instead of getting a columnated "beam", you will instead either focus, or disperse the signal. So, since this is used with an incandescent lamp, and there are many "Styles" of how the filament is routed within the blub, I'd bet the focusing mechanism is used to adapt the lamp to the bulb in use, and help "focus" the light being generated to a point that would be focused on the yolk of any egg being "candled". This would also be helpful if you were candling, say goose or duck or quail eggs, which are different sizes and shapes compared to chicken eggs.

[@garyrobinson8991]

Perhaps a stage spotlight, with dpot focusing capability ?

[@cajuncoinhunter]

I said the same as in a Opera or play event

[@Electronics-Rocks]

I am from a farming family in the UK & never used anything like that. I have sat down checking eggs for fertilisation on a couple of farms. The new kit to do this is very interesting with computer vision.

[@grantmartin1852]

OHMYGOSH. I think you folks and the comments about "Candling" just saved me from throwing out 49 Jumbo eggs! Last week, I bought three cartons of 18 eggs each. Out of the first 5 I had three that had embryonic development. I pitched all 5 but not the remaining that I left in the refrigerator (I hadn't decided how to handle that large of an investment until now). I have a very bright green led flashlight. I turned off the light in the kitchen and tested it on an egg. It shows the yolk shadow just like the images I found on the net! I did 13 from the first carton and didn't find anything like what a google search shows. I did find three where the yolks looked much larger and darker than the others. I cracked them open, and they had DOUBLE yolks! I'm going to check all my eggs this way and hopefully, I won't find anymore embryonic eggs even after the egg shortage is over. THANKS Mr. Carlson!

[@pcar5]

There is no reason what so ever to throw the fertilized eggs away. If it bothers you simply remove the spot and use the egg. Used to happen all the time. I'm afraid we have lost much common sense.

[@grantmartin1852]

@@pcar5 OOOf, they were pretty well along. It was a bloody mess in the skillet. Not very appetizing. In fact, pretty nauseating. I'm not sure why I had such a high rate of development in that first carton. The other two looked ok under the light but they are still going to be hardboiled.

[@mr_mopar]

Never seen one of those large flash bulbs. I do however remember and probably used the flash cubes. Thanks for sharing.

[@Trav84]

1:20 in I’m guessing a light for seeing thru Eggs?

[@davidarnette327]

Comparator bulb? Most of them uses adjustable green lens. You can focus in on a part and project the image on a screen and look at the profile of the part. Still used in manufacturing today.

[@fordmustanggtish]

My thoughts exactly Paul. The egg idea made a lot of sense to me and I remember my father building one out of wood years ago to check the eggs from the chicken coop to see if they were fertilized and a chick growing inside. Could be either. If you don't mind me asking what 6-volt car do you have?

[@johnfalco9528]

I don’t know why but he strikes me as a Vw enthusiast. I’m probably way off base but it’s just a WAG on my part.

[@fordmustanggtish]

@@johnfalco9528 you could be right! I'm thinking similar, maybe even an English car. But alot of English cars were positive ground back that far. Maybe he will still respond.

[@InssiAjaton]

My Polaroid SX70 camera used optionally the cube flash bulbs. That was before I bought an electronic flash unit for it. What probably few people know, the cubes were triggered MECHANICALLY. As I recall, there was a spring loaded "hammer" that, when released, smashed a thin walled tube for the ignition of a (probably zirconium) wire. As a young school boy and early photography enthusiast, I once bought a pair of those Edison base flash bulbs. Mine were coated with blue plastic film for mimicking daylight. Only two, because they cost way too much for my meager funds. Anyway, the flash shattered the glass bulb, but the blue film kept everything safely together.

[@wktodd]

Light beam for a entry alert system, garage forecourt etc (guess)

[@sheep1ewe]

Do You think it could be operated with an old fasioned photocell unit if so, that would make sense i think, maybe they did just use a lightbeam before those photosensitive tubes where esialy available?

[@rewalton46]

About that flash bulb... My dad had an Argus C3 35mm camera that he purchased about the time I was born in 1946. It had a flash unit that plugged into the side of the camera, and it used those screw-in flash bulbs. Later versions of those bulbs had a blue coating. At some point in the 1950s I remember him getting a new flash unit that used the bayonet-style flash bulbs. One of those would probably fit in your mystery device. It wouldn't be of much use, though.

[@TheTrueVoiceOfReason]

I loved using my C3 (affectionately known as "the brick"). I had the flash attachment, used 2 C cells, but never any bulbs as they were pretty much unobtanium by the 80's. That thing took excellent photos.

[@isettech]

the back bowl is a reflector, so the bulb can be adjusted to focus the light onto the glass. This makes the viewing angle quite wide if if the glass is not very diffused. Due to the horizontal orientation, this may be railway equipment to put in the window of a station to let a train know if there is a pickup at that stop.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

When I was a kid, my dad and I saw an unusual light bulb in the storage box we kept them in. It had a standard edison screw base, so we put it in a lamp to see if it was working. Upon turning on the power there was a bright flash and then darkness. It was a photoflash bulb, similar to the one shown in the video.

[@hsimpson6581]

it looks like a theater spot light. works the same. you do have to focus the light beam for big or small circle of light.

[@mikebarrett2621]

That would need a condensing lens to work an a much more powerful bulb. It's a shame the actual answer (egg candler) has been side tracked by the flash bulb discussions!

[@leedavis4241]

There were 2 flavors of flash cubes. The early ones had 2 contacts per flash and 3v came from the camera to light the flash. The newer (magic cube) was self powered by a released spring in the cube smacking a piezo? thing igniting the cube. Learned this as a 8 year old tearing stuff apart.

[@jimweston6577]

I believe it could be a commercial egg candler

[@JeromeBrown-ov4co]

What you have there is a theater fixed spot light. the adjustment on the back that moves the bulb in and out adjusts the filament focal point in the reflector therefore adjusting the size of the spot on stage. The clip allows for different color glazes to be placed in it. From the quality of it I'm guessing this is something that you might have found in your parents' or grand parents' school auditorium, mounted to a lighting truss with the vent hole pointed toward a negative space back stage so it does not spill light on stage while letting the heat escape. These are specialty incandescent bulbs pulling ~20VA so they're super bright and get very hot.

[@bradnelson3595]

Yes, I remember the flash cubes. And I remember the old-school flash bulbs. But I've never seen or worked with a flash bulb that was that large. Very interesting.

[@highvoltagemayhem3345]

I am only 22 years old but growing up I lived in a very 1940s household where not a lot of the appliances or anything ever got updated. I remember one of the cool things my grandmother teaching me was photography and how to handle film etc. Growing up I used a film camera with flash bulbs and man I though I was cool not having to load powder each time but just stick a new bulb in and your ready to go. We even had a dark room in the shop where my uncle would develop our film and enlarge photos. What most people would call vintage or nostalgic like this to me was every day life as a kid.

[@kennethblakley4809]

Yes, egg candling lamp?

[@FASKY2788]

I love this stuff and you did a great job. ThanX! Egg candeler - I can see that it would work as the commenters say.

[@andrewford2783]

It's an early attempt at making a flux capacitor from 1918. Also the super-syphonic anti-splash system looks like it needs a drop of WD40.

[@randyr.parker2698]

🤣👍 Good One!

[@yelyab1]

What car did they use instead of a DeLorean? Must have been old man Fords #888 that, I think was the first car to go 100mph. Mechanical brakes, wooden wheels, tires that had a speed rating of 10mph, no helmet, vertical steering wheel, a seat, a frame, four leaf springs, and tractor steering’, that was it. I think it had a souped up model T engine running Tennessee corn liquor, first pass, 180 proof.

[@deker0954]

In England at the time they used a Kendall Mint Cake as a burst initiator I believe.

[@spencermckim7607]

Pretty sure that is for checking eggs. The green glow is a uranium glass lens. Common with old glass. You should try to hold an egg to it and see if it reacts like an x-ray.

[@RomstarOrion]

It is a floor mount photographic projector flood lamp. The adjustable focus as well as the replacable glass filter show this. Oddly enough, this exact same design could also be used for signaling such as on a rail line. You are correct that the lamp head bar has been cut down, and it is possible that it may have been repurposed for egg candling, but it is also possible that the user simply wanted it closer to the floor. Flash cubes, flash bars, flash bulbs including screw in, push in and turret twist. Still have a lot of the foolish things here somewhere. They really aren't that out of date. Probably late 1970s and the cubes and bars well into the 1980s until electronic flash flash replaced them.

[@LoneWolfZ]

I'm gonna have to go with egg candler as well. As for the flash bulb, those are made with fine magnesium wire in an envelope sealed with pure oxygen.

[@baylissprojects]

I believe it may be a green safelight, used for developing film in a darkroom. While red light is the usual colour for a safelight, green light can be used where films lack sensitivity at that particular wavelength. It can be used sparingly to gauge the highlights as they develop.

[@jerrymalone8370]

But the vent hole lets white light out.

[@richardmassoth8237]

Green safelights are often used for infrared-sensitive film, or film that would be "painted" with a scanning red laser. That's how the older CT and MRI film printers produced medical images. The device could have been used in a darkroom for spot inspection of such films, but the white light out of the hole would have wrecked the unprocessed film. Red safelights are used for green-sensitive film and amber safelights are used for blue-sensitive film. By far, red is the most common safelight color.

[@baylissprojects]

@@jerrymalone8370 I was thinking that there may have been a cover for it originally

[@baylissprojects]

@@richardmassoth8237 I was thinking that there may have been a cover for the hole originally

[@martinda7446]

@@richardmassoth8237 Also that isn't an optical quality filter, its just a bit of rough green glass with leaks all over. We have established beyond doubt it is for checking your dozen eggs.

[@joejdl]

Early guess is a microscope lamp / light source. Handy to adjust depth at the rear, and there’s a filter holder…

[@cryptograndpa2556]

Railroad switch lamp to signal if switch is open or closed. Would have required a 120 Volt transformer nearby which is odd. The protective arra in front by galss seems to hint that it would need protection fro wind blown leaves, possibly coal chunks from train.

[@sheep1ewe]

I am not sure, but did they use the 220V stationary tap transformer system in Canada as well (or was that only used in Europe?), that my possibly explain it if it came from a spot that happened to be hooked up to one of those line transformer configurated for 220V (in Europe they where sometimes used on spots that required 220V even if the on board system was 110V, if i man nopt wrong that system has been around since 1926 here, so the trime my be correct ), if so, perhaps? (Honestly i hawe no idea if that's what it is, just guessing here)

[@wombleofwimbledon5442]

Dude. I am so glad you do this work. National Treasure.

[@danw1955]

Old egg candler!😉 Back in the 1960's there was an old chicken farm up the road from us that had several of these (the American variant anyway) and they would run on electric or batteries, if commercial line voltage wasn't available.

[@editorjuno]

When I was working a neighborhood pharmacy (remember those?) back in the 1960s, there were a couple of those big screw-base flashbulbs in a box back in the stockroom. I offered one of the owner-pharmacists (remember those?) a dollar for them and got to take them home. I put one in a regular 120VAC lamp's bulb socket, connected the lamp's line cord to a switched AC outlet, flipped the switch, and got one he||uva a very brief, very bright flash of pure white illumination of the whole room.

[@walter9724]

Egg inspector for chicken eggs

[@mackfisher4487]

Edison socket flashbulb: I have two 4 x 5 graph flex cameras they both have flash attachments, and they do use the Edison socket lamp that you showed. As a kid when my father got home Each night and had the habit of reading the newspaper, once he reach over and pull the chain switch on the lamp to read his newspaper he was surprised because I had substituted the standard incandescent lamp with the flashbulb. Fortunately for my the plastic coating on the lamp prevented the glass from shattering but the increased light level was very startling to my father. No child was injured during this experiment.

[@smcic]

Welcome to the exciting world of Plumbus ownership! A Plumbus will aid many things in life, making life easier. With proper maintenance, handling, storage, and urging, Plumbus will provide you with a lifetime of better living and happiness

[@TheRealRobG]

One other option - could it be the transmitter in a 'magic eye' setup? Back in the 1970s our local farm used to have one to detect people entering the farm shop and ring a bell. No idea whether such things were in existence back when this was manufactured.

[@dhpbear2]

I'm curious about that wear-pattern around the outside of the housing.

[@GTCGreg]

This was back in the late 60's. A friend of mine was an architectural photographer and was assigned the task of taking pictures of the inside of historic buildings in Chicago. One building had a very large atrium that he wanted to get a wide angle photo of from a balcony that surrounded it. The interior of the building was very poorly lite so he hung a string of those large Edison base flash bulbs around the railing of the balcony and then opened the shutter of his camera and fired the string of flash bulbs with a car battery. The photo came out perfect and was even published in one of the Chicago Sunday magazines.

[@jberk8529]

I would think for plays. Some kind of light for theater.

[@edkretchmer2167]

I use "Safeway Glass Cleaner" to clean delicate serial number/nameplates, clear and other plastics, and other parts. It's ammonia-free, does not leave streaks, and it's an American Company made in Canada. I also use it on an aquarium so ammonia "fumes" don't affect the fish and it doesn't leave residue or streaks. It's available at Dollar General and pretty much anywhere they also sell Windex.

[@tschupbach]

When I was a kid, we bought a bunch of these from the Army surplus store. They used them to take pictures for your service record, I guess. At any rate, I wired a bunch of these up to my future brother in laws car they were using to go on their honeymoon. Had them connected to the ignition, brake lights and so forth. Even had one in the glove box. (They didn't find that one till later on). They are, as you assume, incredibly bright. 12 volts was enough to set them off, don't know the lower threshold or if static would do it.

[@Doonit_hard_way_since_65]

egg candling. nice find, not seen one since my grand parents farm in the late 60's

[@gustavgnoettgen]

Spotlight for like a stage? The filter makes it look like that. Also, we had similar lamps in the school lab (different construction, made in 1980s) as a semi-linear light source for physics experiments. The bulb assembly can be used to adjust the spot.

[@johnfoster6194]

Back in the 60's I was given a Graflex Speed Graphic 4x5 format camera with negative carriers and flash. It used those type flash bulbs, and yes they were extremely bright.

[@leradiodigiorgio-iu1edh]

Truly a very curious and cute object, sometimes it also happens to me to come home with curious things.

[@DavidTipton101]

Looks like you have the answer from the comments below. Fun video Paul 😃

[@overkillaudioinc]

to preserve that flash bulb. take a bulb socket. short the terminals together and screw the flash bulb into it. now a static charge can't accidentally cause it to go off

[@sondrayork6317]

It looks a little bit like a stage light like bands would use. If you can change the color of the light, it would probably be a stage light.