Dissecting An IEE Projection Display!

[@IslandHermit]

Love seeing the cleverness they put into these old gadgets.

[@Soliton19]

Fran may have the world's largest collection of working electronic display systems. I look forward to visiting the FranLab museum.

[@ibanezleftyclub]

Sam over at This Museum is Not Obsolete is probably in the running lead these days.

[@eddiejoe5928]

This video took me way back. I was an electronic tech in the steel mills in the 70s & early 80s. The 327-bulb seemed to be an industry standard back then. The 387 was a longer-lasting replacement for the 327, it was a little more expensive than the 327 but did last a lot longer. The next and final step in my career was repairing Medical Xray equipment and the 327 was used in a lot of that equipment built in the 70s & 80s.

[@scose]

1:25 lmao, all those abbreviations when there's 3/4 of a line free at the end 😂

[@mikefochtman7164]

We had several of these in our control room. Some had custom masks with things like "MW/HR", "RPM", and "PSI". Pretty versatile little devices for their time.

[@ElectricGears]

When I saw that the wire holding the terminal block on the back of the module was actually two L shaped pieces instead of a single U shaped piece, I think the ends that are tucked under the central clip are supposed to be bent out from underneath it. Then each wire can be slid out and you don't need to bend out the 4 side hooks.

[@WattSekunde]

You can even spot a groove above pin labeled 1 & 2 and the hook in the middle to bend the clips downwards.

[@brendanfarthing]

Exactly what I thought

[@Donna230]

I took a wood shop class and a metal shop class in school, but I never took an electronics shop class. I think taking a course like this would be very beneficial for students today. We need repair to come back in the U.S., where I live.

[@flymypg]

What an incandescent presentation!

[@frenchmarky]

These must be what they used on a lot of game shows in the early days because they have the exact same appearance. Poke around for a video of 'Jeopardy' when Art Fleming was the host, except of course the numbers were much larger.

[@matbillings2533]

The style of the numbers and how they look reminds me of the intro to Thunderbirds!

[@FranLab]

Century 21 productions used a lot of projection displays... UFO, Space 1999...

[@klif_n]

Pretty ingenious in its day. We are so spoiled with fully addressable pixel displays.

[@orbatos]

It's say what we're really spoiled by is integrated drivers (and very compact ones at that) and tools like i2c, eliminating much of the hardware design work as all you need are data connections.

[@LeoPlaysMCElevators]

I’ve actually came across a Westinghouse elevator with some scrolling IEE displays. The digits in the display are diffusers that scroll when the elevator is moving up and down the shaft.

[@FranLab]

I'd like to see that...

[@sleethmitchell]

yes, the 'opaque' is brushed on to correct unplanned gaps in the film. i used to do that to prepare film before burning the image onto offset printing plates. it's got that weird red tint to it.

[@orbatos]

In this case it's also "correcting" the decimal places. I assume this is a side effect of producing these with a single photographic plate, then customizing as needed?

[@Chriva]

Am I the only one thinking "Dissecting An IEEEEEEEEEE! .. Projection Display" in their head? Every time IEEEEEE! comes up 😂

[@harrypitts7389]

Fran, you took me back to Navy days 1960s. Tthanks

[@pirobot668beta]

Was shouting at the screen: Loosen the white screws on the lamp-block first! I tore down one of these a few life-times ago...

[@TentoesMe]

And someone figured out all those optics on paper with a slide rule!

[@EvilWill1]

Mtg brk'ts = mounting Brackets Thk = Thick

[@gcewing]

Mounting Brackets, Fran. Mounting Brackets.

[@mikepelletier1399]

Nut driver probably would have been the proper tool to use.

[@frenchmarky]

I wonder what the brightest LEDs are that would still fit into those holes. Ones with long leads would work if you just bypassed the springs and soldered the leads directly to them, since they are unlikely to burn out anyway. I would think if a bright one would fit it would blow any incandescent that tiny right outta the water and without all the heat.

[@ericmoeller3634]

i think BRK'T means briquettes brackets

[@tvelektron]

What do You mean, may it be possible to make something like that as a DIY project, with a little help of 3D printing. Maybe (warmwhite) LEDs to work around heat problems together with the 3D printers plastic... The real challenge are the lenses, I currently have no idea for an approach...

[@paulkocyla1343]

Out of curiosity: Is the artwork film a standard 35mm photographic film or something custom?

[@FranLab]

These would have been made in large sheets of high contrast film, not the full contrast film used for photography.

[@paulkocyla1343]

@@FranLab Thanx!

[@marshallberry8943]

I don't remember the bulb numbers off hand but was just recently looking at the drawer for little bulbs at my work for a 327 to replace in an indicator for an old piece of equipment. there are ones that have the same voltage rating but are either high brightness or low brightness. I'm guessing for those displays they would need a high briteness bulb to make sure they are clear enough.

[@pklausspk]

Did you manage to put it all together again?

[@FranLab]

Keeping it apart for future reference and posterity.

[@michaelfrench3396]

I was watching your video yesterday and it inspired me and I found another KZbin channel that did a dissection. I'm still going to watch yours see if it's any better but

[@TheDiveO]

will all the details and close-up shots eventually make it into a wiki page?

[@mrroryc]

Loving how you have upped your game - great job and continue to listen to good advice 😉

[@goofyrulez7914]

Who needs power tools when you can unscrew that fast? 🙂

[@ramonveres3541]

Coundown would be better.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Discombobulation... followed by recombobulation. That's how ya do it! :) Nice teardown, lovely device. Use the Force... but not too much, or you're shearing that off, haha. I just watched an old film about the proper use of hand tools: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGmxdqJ-bq58bMk - I wouldn't be surprised if you had a reel in your collection. Quite educational.

[@all4espi]

That notice sticker is the epitome of bad decisions. Too small. Strangely worded. Strangely abbreviated. Just weird all around.

[@gotherecom]

⚡WARNING - Unplug before inserting fingers - ⚡

[@CG-rr6yx]

Remarkably, the device has the classic structure of a slide projector. There is a first set of lenses, directly in front of the lamps, acting as condenser lenses. These collimate the light beams in order to uniformly illuminate the digit images on the film. Then there is the second set of lenses, acting as objective lenses, which project the images on the screen. The masks (shims) placed in front and behind the objective could be used to fine tune the distance between the lenses and the film (like adjusting the lens of a camera), in order to adapt, probably, to manufacturing displays with slightly differing screen spacing, offering somewhat differing digit sizes .

[@donnelson8524]

I used to use that opaque terra-cotta-colored paint on slides in the planetarium back in the days before digital projection. Even the best processed slides would let some light through the black areas so we'd painstakingly paint around the subject of every slide-a planet, spaceship, or whatever! I spent many hours at the light table with a fine brush; if you didn't do this, every object you projected onto the dome would have a grey rectangular background. Lots of work, but the results were spectacular 🙂 We also used Kodalith film to make slides with graphics, titles, etc. We'd photograph what we needed on a light table and process the Kodalith film on the spot... pretty convenient for the day! We only used Swedish Gepe slide mounts because they had thin sheets of glass on each half so that the slide was completely protected from scuffing. Any scratch on the emulsion or the opaque paint would result a bright line on the planetarium dome. ahhh... fun times!

[@DaleWiese]

So how long before you craft up a F R A N L A B ! plate?

[@RooMan93]

Hey Fran I love your content! I was thinking with all your experience with these displays, what would a FranVision display look like if you imagine yourself as an engineer of the time. What would design ques would you keep from other displays and what would be new.