How Did They Do Those Animated Lights?

How they made all those animated sign displays. Enjoy!
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[@theonlywoody2shoes]

My dad was into model railways back in the 1960s and 70s. He made something similar out of a Paxolin board with concentric rings of individual bent OO gauge railway track fixed to it. A spindle through the centre drove an arm with copper contacts that swept around the cut sections of the railway track, each of which was wired to separate circuits. We had the most complex Christmas tree and window light flasher in town. Fortunately he rewired the lights in parallel to run at 24v AC rather than British mains at 240v, and the transformer for the 200+ lamps helped warm the room in winter. The aroma of electrical arcing is something I still associate with the Christmas and new year holidays, along with the smell of 1:1:1 Carbon Tetrachloride that he would use to clean any tarnishing of the tracks (model railway and light flasher). Different times!

[@tihzho]

Neon was animated directly by using a special high voltage animator very similar to a car distributor using that same motor in your video. They used to come in 4, 6 and 8 circuits. Being a neon glass blower from the 70's I used those neon animators often. Marquee chasers used an off center circle contacting lever switches for the bulb circuits. For complex animations several cams on a common rotating shaft contacted lever switches. Very complex animations were possible. I've seen an animator with 40 cams.

[@teamidris]

What amazes me about KZbin is the odd fascinating video that triggers a load of posts like this. Info that never really comes up from people who did it :o)

[@GrayRaceCat]

My father was a sign maker in New Hampshire. He built many signs with chaser lights. I remember playing with the chaser relays (older worn out units) in his shop as a kid back in the 60s. He had boxes of them on a shelf that he would use to repair others.

[@frodbolf]

sweet! do you have more info? or can point me in the direction of videos/documents about this?

[@tihzho]

@@frodbolf Google "neon high voltage animators for sale"

[@prestonburton8504]

sweeeeet! that is so awesome! i grew up next to williamsburg va and that was my fav place - to see the glass blowers and the magic they could do - question - would you have to completely evacuate the final glass -via vacuum or could some residual atmosphere still exist (argon/nitrogen -as the oxy would readily combined with any heated electrodes) as you 'piped in' the neon. and? where did the neon come from? pressurized tank - like helium? which would help purge the tube after you fabricated? i always wanted to know this (having grown up with nixie and advertising neon displays) -

[@stevedoubleu99B]

Whether it is yourself or your fellow KZbinrs, one word comes up a lot.....FUN. Such fun can easily absorb 40 minutes. I could watch and listen to you all day Fran. I too love quirky stuff. Best Wishes from UK.

[@kriss506]

That was great. I've wondered for many years how did sign artists make fancy signs with chasing lights and neon animations. From watching old movies and documentaries I know that there were some very elaborate ones created very early on. It amazed me that they could be created so many years ago. I suppose Fran showed us an example of the types of heavy duty devices that made it possible. Thank you Fran and to all the clever engineers and electricians who made such signs possible!

[@appliedengineering4001]

looks like a mechanical version of a 555 timer and a CD4017 decade chip circuit. Those 2 chip were my go to for building light chaser circuits.

[@phillyphakename1255]

Its somehow nothing like I was expecting, but also exactly what I was expecting. Those shaded pole motors with the felt oil resivoirs are cool to see, just yesterday serviced one that was 40 years old in continuous operation. The robustness for longevity is cool to see.

[@kensmith5694]

Yes, they could run basically forever. When they did have trouble, you could repair them.

[@WCM1945]

That was the standard for both AC clocks and record players. Hammond even used them as "starter motors" on their tone-wheel organs.

[@kensmith5694]

@@WCM1945 The motor in an AC wall clock was a lot different. It started like a shaded pole motor. The rotor, however, was a little bar of magnetic material that made it run as a synchronous reluctance/hysteresis motor once it got to speed. This made it do exactly one full rotation per cycle on the mains so in a modern country it kept perfect time.

[@johnpekkala6941]

Wich is quite amazing cause the bearings on these type of motors are kind of simple and cheap sleeve bearings but I guess as long there is some oil in there the shaft and sleve wil be 100% separated and so no wear occurs even spinning for year after year at 3000/3600 rpm

[@WCM1945]

@@johnpekkala6941 1: More like 1750 rpm The bearings in that type of motor were usually sintered brass or bronze. That stuff could hold a light oil for years.

[@WOFFY-qc9te]

Thanks Fran. Nicely made rotary switch, Tuffnol is a great material to machine. Some early moving signs used a shallow tray full of Mercury, above this was a perforated continuous roll with the text to be displayed, this allowed the circuit to be passed up to the individual lamp contacts above the roll. Some of these were several feet long and probably not good to be near.

[@caw25sha]

My dad was an engineer and visited all sorts of places from oil rigs to sock factories. He told me that he once saw the switching equipment running the advertising lights in Piccadilly Circus in London. They are now big screens which you could probably run from a laptop or maybe even a Raspberry Pi but back then, 1960s I think, there were rooms full of relays clicking away using pretty much the same technology as telephone exchanges of the time.

[@kriss506]

I would have loved to see such a room!

[@dogwalker666]

"Uniselectors" were also used in railway junctions and early machine tools, I have replaced them with PLC's. Always seems a shame.

[@gustavgnoettgen]

Like that expo lightbulb sign/display. It's crazy. Former top notch technology just vanishes, and who knows if there are blueprints left. Sometimes old tech shows up like industrial engines, hidden behind a wall because scrapping was too expensive or difficult. Or slate slab circuits for elevators. I wished I had taken one of the twist switches from my old house. And whatnot.

[@dieseldragon6756]

As a Brit who's _very_ skeptical about Governments _Levelling Up_ policies; I wouldn't be at all surprised if that same relay room was now driving the screens... 📺⚙🇬🇧😉

[@johncantwell8216]

@@dogwalker666 Worked on a similar project, replacing Tennor drum stepping switches that controlled a Vitamin C production line.

[@hammondeggsmusic]

I remember seeing a few of these of these but they were much simpler. A motor drove a geared down flywheel and attached to that was a cam with 4 contacts. The cams would lift what looked like large relay contacts, and would cause whatever was connected to sequence across etc.

[@ds99]

That is very cool. I didn’t realize that the flashing lights had a mechanical component like this. It’s quite ingenious.

[@FrankBenlin]

And right after the end of the video, Fran reconnected that flopping ring terminal. There, fixed it.

[@guytech7310]

The NYC Times square ticker was driven by paper tape. They would punch out the message onto a a paper tape. The machine would use the holes to make contact for each bulb on in the display. This is when the ticker started operation in the late 1920's. Nice vintage rotary switcher & very clean No oil, grease or grime. Those gears are probably not aluminum if there is a wire soldered to them. probably brass or bronze, unless its laminated some brass sheet metal for the connection. There isn't any way to solder to Aluminum.

[@marjon1703]

It is hard to see but I think the wire is soldered to the spindle. I solder Aluminum using oxygen free flux and Aluminum soft solder. If you scrape away the oxide layer within the flux it is an easy process.

[@johncantwell8216]

As recently as the mid-1960's, industrial plants were being built using punched cards to operate control relays for sequencing operations such as batch production of rubber for tires. I worked on a project in the 1980's to convert one of these systems to PLC and computer control. The original control room sounded like a cross between a pinball machine and a gambling casino with slot machines!

[@randomguy1769]

You don't know how long I've been wondering how the Times Square news ticker originally worked. Thank you so much for this information!

[@tookitogo]

I also very much doubt those gears are aluminum, but simply because aluminum isn’t as durable a material as brass for such purposes, and the needed aluminum alloys cost more than brass (certainly back when this thing was made!). It simply wouldn’t have made sense to use aluminum.

[@TentoesMe]

My dad, an EE, described that gizmo to me when we went to a theater to see "Jungle Book." I think I was 10.

[@1st1anarkissed]

My father used one of those to create a weather vane. He welded up the roof vane, a sailboat on an arrow, and the pipe through the roof went to a round plate of contacts and a little pointer than spun around with the wind. Downstairs was a panel he made from scratch with 8 lights in a circle corresponding to the compass points on the wind vane.

[@WHMAGuy]

Thanks Fran! Learned something new as always

[@anonemus2971]

The inside of an old school pinball machine is an amazing piece of electrical engineering also.

[@BVN-TEXAS]

Many things used to be automated by rotary taps like this. They used them in a lot to assembly lines and machines using a drum with a bunch of pins hitting contacts. We have come a long way from them but it’s amazing what made things work back then. Look at technology connections video on the relay logic of pinball machines.

[@RoySATX]

As a kid in the 60s and 70s I had the privilege, or notoriety depending on your perspective, of being related to a bunch of always on-the-move gipsy types who travelled about in campers and short-trailers working for carnival midways or, depending on the season and providence, selling fireworks or Christmas Trees (or anything of value they happened to have, really). A very eclectic and energetic bunch of individuals, they always told great tales and smelled so interesting! They also, despite common belief, were as honest as sunshine and loved and protected us kids whenever we were with them. By way of them (not always intentionally) I got to see many examples of how midway blinkenlumen are controlled, from the simple to highly contrived, all fascinating! I also learned to love the smell of corndog mixed with diesel fuel, to this day it reminds me of my Aunt May and her, as my mother would say, cocoa colored girlfriend, Nadine. Indeed, everything about them was colorful and in motion, RIP, all. About the device you have there, there's a wiring harness I believe with solid colored wires that you never spoke of or even showed how it attached, skipped right over that unless I missed it. The screw contacts around the outside have thinner, two-colored wires that have been cut, I wish you had shown the other side in the back where the wire harness looking thing attached. There's something not quite right about how you described the operation but not enough was shown to know for sure. Very unlike you to be so unthorough. Are you okay?

[@JessHull]

its beautiful, I love the way it looks. I would like to have it as a friend.

[@cindythorn3212]

I made a crude version of what you have when I was a kid using 12 volts car bulbs 10 light's two bulbs a part chasing .

[@crackthefoundation_]

This is the type of fascinating stuff that appeals to everyone really, Yes, it's electronics, but everyone's seen these , go forth and explain more pls

[@WCM1945]

Technically, that would have been called electromechanics. "Electronics" applies to any device where control of electrical flow was done with electrostatic devices such as vacuum tubes.

[@spectrotekservices]

From what little I could see in the rear of the unit, I think that there was another contact brush behind the Phenolic disk that rode on the outer edge of the exposed portion of the brass drum. It was probably removed when the unit was pulled from service and later got discarded or lost.

[@FranLab]

There are two holes through the insulator for mounting other things, and likely yes, other wipers.

[@paulgrieger8182]

That insulator is linen impregnated phenolic plastic - the same material they use for knife handles on fancy custom tactical designs. Because of the layers of linen, it produces wonderful topographic patterns when it is carved.

[@jamesedinger4956]

This same type of technology was used in a factory I worked at in my youth to control production machinery. A sort of hardware "program" that used mechanical switching to automate machines. It worked quite well, but would require rebuilding to "re-program".

[@ehvway]

What a cool piece of old tech ma'am. Always wondered how they did it Thank you for sharing!

[@lanewells5290]

Looks like something easy to take apart but nearly impossible to put back together lol all the springs and brushes

[@Vodhin]

As it is set up, I think it was an "Off" chaser where it's interrupting a couple of circuits (creating a wave of darkness). There may also be a circuit to deliver a small amount of power to the circuit that is "Off", keeping those bulbs' filaments from breaking due to the rapid cycling.

[@BRUXXUS]

What a beautiful part that is - and in fantastic condition! What a treasure. :)

[@maxmaier5243]

Reminds me, when I was about 13 or 14. I used the motorized switch section of a washing mashine to switch some lights and arranged them, so that it looked very important 😂

[@KeritechElectronics]

All right, here is mine: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aWq1eXyllpyal7s Very similar. Driven with a shading coil induction motor, 18 contacts. Also a bit different: no die-cast aluminum, no ceramics (or teflon?), and it uses a worm drive which is way simpler and cheaper. Mine also seems to be turning slower. My wild guess is that it was custom made by the Polish Academy of Sciences Experimental Biology Institute in Warsaw, the makers of the shock generator I took it from. Who knows, maybe the engineers found an US patent for yours and copied the design with cheaper technologies available in 1970s Poland? These short sections are there for preventing a carbon brush from shorting the live and ground half-rings. They have to be the same diameter as the whole rotor, otherwise the spring-loaded brushes would fall in and jam the mechanism, or become sheared from torque and eventually completely destroyed.

[@dirtapple1716]

When I saw the title and thumbnail I thought about how I'd do it mechanically. I was thinking a flat plate with a bunch of brass buttons each with a wire and an armature that connects them in sequence as it rotates. Then to do a lil delay I'd make a series of relays, one per light; that one relay closing turned on another light and closed another relay, to give a quick but delayed shimmer. Maybe going diagonally in a matrix like 40 lights wide by 120 long. Sounds like a fun, loud project 😀

[@James_Bowie]

Looks like a great RFI generator.

[@WCM1945]

You better believe it, brother. A local radio station here sued a nearby movie theater for interference with their studio equipment. This was in the twenties, I'm told, long before my time.

[@tonyc223]

It looks new..NOS..Very clean, no carbon residue.. Great stuff. Would be interesting to hook it up and see how long it would run. Years?

[@JeffFrmJoisey]

Decades ago, I got my hands on what I believe was the Chaser mechanism from a mall deli’s sign after it folded. It looked hand made. On a maybe 9” by 12” piece of wood, there was a synchronous motor. On its shaft were 4-5 5” or so aluminum discs. They triggered roller micro switches. Supports were hardware store angles; the connections on old type barrier terminal strips. Don’t know if it ran a bunch of relays or ran right to the bulbs.

[@izzynutz2000]

I used to work for a carnival many years ago They used to have a light chaser that had three sets of points in it and a wobble wheel in the middle that the tips of the points would rest on and as it would turn it would open and close the points therefore making the lights Chase when you wire the lights you wire them if you have a bank of six you break it up into three one two three and you hook one and four together 2 + 5 and 3 and 6 and then you start over again therefore it makes the lights Chase

[@laurencefinston7036]

Depending on the effect you're trying to get, It can be quite tricky getting the animation to look like it's moving in a particular direction. It's very easy to inadvertantly get a kind of optical illusion, where something may look like it's moving in one direction or the other. It's also very easy to create something which isn't understandable and just looks chaotic. I really admire the skill of the people who worked out the logic of the animations without using computers.

[@azurplex]

Might those brass inner parts that seem not to be connected actually be wipers meant to connect interleaved line and load contacts as they pass between them or are they not wide enough to bridge them?

[@Stabby666]

The fairground ones are interesting too. Basically just a clock connected to a binary counter connected to the address lines on one or more EEPROMs, with the data output(s) connected to FETs, relays or triacs allowing for very long and complex animations. They could be switched between animations by just changing the high address bits, if needed.

[@ShawnWrona]

I love the old electronics where the technology was depended on the mechanical component just as much as the electrical circuitry!❤

[@Gringo_In_Chile]

Reminds me of a rotating videotape helical scanning drum video heads.

[@UltimatePerfection]

Hey, I'd like to ask about the thing in the intro that you used to show your logo animation, what is it and where can I get something like that (my goal is to create few IRL animated gifs with it as it seems portable enough to carry around, and would be reserved for the situation when somebody says something that you simply can't reply with words.

[@laurencefinston7036]

It would appear to be a Rolodex or something similar. In Germany, they used to have automated signs in railroad stations that operated on the same principle. I haven't seen one in awhile, though. IRL animated GIFs would be flipbooks.

[@berndeckenfels]

Maybe it relies on connecting 8 lamps with each other to serial connect them so you don’t need a second contact for that part? But half a side also works for chaser if you do every second lamp on other half

[@hippynurd]

An easy way to setup marquee light chasers is to use an RGB LED controller thats setup for color cycling, and instead of using RGB leds, use LEDs that have separate red, green and blue LEDs or wire up your own 3 channel LEDs.

[@JamesCee]

you could have each wire go to power relays or SCR's to control higher amp lights too

[@techguy9023]

Remember the zipper? News ticker on a building in Times Square in the 1940’s? Didn’t it use a paper tape reader driving relays and light bulbs? The Motograph was it’s name.

[@Teenagegoogoomuk]

Check out the turn signal mech. on a 69 mercury cougar. Its a drum style. pretty cool

[@101Osprey101]

I make signs and pinball is my hobby. I would love to acquire some old light chasers for several projects.

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

Yes, EM pinballs used similar things for state wheels (steppers), but they weren't that solid because the didn't rotate 24/7.

[@101Osprey101]

@@cyberyogicowindler2448 you are incredibly wrong. I collect EM pinball machines. Trust me, they are every bit as solid.

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

​@@101Osprey101 Of course they are robust (long ago I owned a Bally Champ), but they don't have all those thick metal contacts with carbon rods etc. The Bally e.g. just used normal PCB material in those state wheel mech, because it is not supposed to rotate 24 hours a day. But it would not surprise me if some 1930th pinballs indeed had thick full metal contact wheels.

[@101Osprey101]

@@cyberyogicowindler2448 man I hate to be "Downer Debbie" but again, you are wrong. There were LOTS of pinball machines that had chasers or motors that ran 24/7. Look into bingo machines sometime. Pinball and video games were all designed to be on continuously. I have a Space Invaders video game I just picked up. 1978. NO power switch was installed on these. Their components were every bit as well built.

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

​@@101Osprey101 I wasn't aware that the same kind of light chasers were used also in pinball backglass effects. I thought of the stepper state wheels for game logics, those were made of thinner material.

[@erickvond6825]

Speaking of animation switches, It might be fun if you built a Larson scanner like they used on the Cylon costumes in Battlestar Galactica (the original one) or Knight Rider.

[@FranLab]

Like this - kzbin.info/www/bejne/gH_FdZeketV0hbM

[@motodude23]

"Vintage leds" cool

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

3:20 - The smell of phenolic in the morning ! 9:28 - Don't need a torch. Just a larger iron, like a 100W American Beauty. Of course, a similar related tech, is to use a geared down motor to drive a bunch of cams, with a Microswitch per cam. That's what use to used for washing machines, in the pre-microcontroller days.

[@tookitogo]

Or a modern soldering station with an adequately large tip! I have a 120W Ersa station at work and routinely solder things like heavy machined banana plugs. :) Advantage over something like the American Beauty is that the modern tool is much, much smaller, with a much smaller tip-to-grip distance.

[@felixar90]

IS it so old it was hooked up to 25Hz grid?

[@deemstyle]

This switch is really cool, but what the chickens it actually called?? I can’t find anything like this on eBay.

[@Smrts955]

The grounding on that is making me think of bootleg ground in outlet wiring.

[@JoshyDaMan08]

Cool pieces but that limitation design for sign business. I remember I had for the book from Las Vega light show, there is a company named YESCO which is custom made for business sign including incandescent lamp driver and neon lamp driver. However, it's for business only. I enjoyed the built my own logic ICs sequence lights can be found any source projects applied with relay switches or optocoupler drivers. That pieces is more reliable parts than solid state electronic, they are pro and cons and also running the problem later factor on both mechanical bushes and solid state electronic.

[@weirdsciencetv4999]

I would have imagined daisy-chained bistable relay oscillators.

[@rikwalton4378]

Good to see you back on my feed Fran, I love your content, it makes me smile 😁

[@andygozzo72]

hmm....if you could connect the other contact side, somehow, try wiring this other side to 'ground', neons BETWEEN each switched contact, and feed front wiper from high voltage through 100k 1w resistor, and see what happens......

[@lutello3012]

How did they do scrolling text signs before computers?

[@FranLab]

All analog, and several different methods - some optical, and some using moving switch templates.

[@tookitogo]

Well not really analog, since it’s signals turned off and on (with nothing in between). Just electromechanical.

[@CARLiCON]

interesting..I wonder why UPenn would have an electro mechanical lamp sequencer, could it have been used for something else, like a computer clock?

[@FranLab]

They had a lot of timing equipment, so likely some experiment.

[@iyogi2]

What a cool thingama-jig...............

[@dfmayes]

Unless it's a very high resistance, you should be able to light an led by simply increasing the voltage.

[@ivankocienski1]

so how did those big Ticker Tape signs work then? like the one from that famous photo at the end of WWII. I am guessing it was using shift registers with punched paper tape on a loop as input. but that's just my totally uninformed thought

[@FrankBenlin]

Speaking of phenolic board. Have you ever noticed how, when you roast a little tick that stowed away on you from the deep woods that it smells just like very hot phenolic board?

[@mikegLXIVMM]

Fran-Lab™

[@cheviot2]

I've been trying to figure out how to do this using LEDs and Arduino to simulate the old Vegas lights.

[@FranLab]

Right here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnvKkoegnJasgtE

[@cheviot2]

@@FranLab Thanks! I'm going to have to do something like that, but using relays to turn on rows of lights. I'm looking to have moving bars of light on a miniature sign.

[@tmastersat]

I know how they did it. They used steeper relays i have one. Mine it much smaller it came off electronic learning station

[@rickhalverson2252]

I think any armature of a brush type motor would have been a simpler start. That design anyways.

[@5minuterevolutionary493]

Love your channel. My response to the title itself is: can they stop? America is a psychopath. . 70% of US household water goes to lawns. I can only imagine what percentage of the Las Vegas strip's carbon footprint goes to these seizure inducing nightmares that pollute the sky and poison the brain.

[@filepz629]

❤️‍🔥

[@Madness832]

In your thumbnail, you show what appears to be signs from Vegas. So, money is the answer, lots and lots of money.

[@skilledthecat876]

Don't hook it up to LEDs, hook it up to a bunch of solenoids!

[@bluhammer06]

Hi Fran, that looks like a Tektronix 465 scope behind you? I have a nice factory service manual for one free if you want it.

[@KeritechElectronics]

564B, if I'm correct.

[@eltronics]

Please, show me more...

[@Derpy1969]

The kilowatts needed for all of those lights. 10s to hundreds of kilowatts. All powered by coal.

[@FloridaDIYer]

Cringe

[@brycerichert]

I love you Flann!

[@mr3745]

Seeing the very robust construction, high RPM, and the contact count - my first thought, I wonder if this was part of an original mechanical flasher for an airport approach lighting system (the ALS "rabbit") which has I believe 15 sequenced flashing lights chasing towards the runway.

[@Drmcclung]

Neat topic! I always wondered how giant analog signs worked. Ford/Lincoln's sequential turn signals from the 60's had a similar rotating mechanical contraption

[@caw25sha]

A few modern cars have them but I suspect they might be a bit more solid state!

[@tookitogo]

Not analog - it’s still just on/off (bilevel) signaling. (Analog means continuously-variable signals without discrete states.)

[@marcberm]

Now I wish I could find it somewhere, but I remember seeing an old short from the Popular Science film series, which discussed how then-modern animated electriic sign boards used a matrix of lights controlled by a corresponding matrix of photocels on the back. The sysytems would use rear projection through interchangable scrolls of text printed as a negative on clear film. The demonstration had hula dancers on a platform between a bare projection bulb and the matrix, causing their forms to be displayed in negative on the lighted side.

[@caw25sha]

That's pretty clever, almost a primitive type of television.

[@gustavgnoettgen]

​@@caw25sha On tape even.

[@atmel9077]

I had read about that somewhere on the Internet and I would love to see such a system in operation. Alos, I think in the 1940s someone made an experimental TV set which had a 50x50 pixel neon bulb dot matrix display, and it would scan the pixels one by one using a mechanical commutator with 2500 contacts.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

The not connected tabs are to avoid brushes connecting the two halves as they cross. If you were to use the tabs as contact, the brushes would connect the tabs to the half rings as they pass.

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

The carbon contacts (like in brush motors) have high resistance to prevent shortcircuit damage, but this may also help to increase the lifespan of incandescent lights, because the cold filament has lower resistance and so heats up unequally during each power-on, forming local hotspots those finally burn out.

[@KeritechElectronics]

This was very surprising - I have an utterly similar device, made in Poland and used in a "shock generator", a research device I got from the medical university. It was probably used in some experimentation on living tissues or even animals, and had multiple electrodes, with high voltage direct current applied by the motorized rotary distributor. Questionable ethics have unforeseen consequences... Even better, I got three or four of those shock generators, and discombobulated just one of them. The rest is waiting in my Vault... so I really have to make a video. I really wonder about the story of your unit - how you got it and where it was originally installed.

[@caw25sha]

Maybe from one of those devices they use on people who have had a cardiac arrest. I don't know what they are called.

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

@@caw25sha Defibrillator?

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

What you name "shock generators" was very common until 1950th as quack medical devices. Particularly late 1800 to about 1930 there was a big craze about this stuff (not only for infamous brain treatments in nuthouses). Websearch "violet ray" for a more interesting variant.

[@KeritechElectronics]

​@@cyberyogicowindler2448 mine probably has more to do with Skinner boxes and animal experimentation. Still, questionable ethics.

[@WCM1945]

@@cyberyogicowindler2448 My father had a sideline (from teaching an electronics course) of maintaining some of the "quack" devices used by local chiropractors. Guilt made him stop that service.

[@1980JPA]

I love that big chunk of Westinghouse Micarta (phenolic board). The price of that stuff in the wild is skyrocketing. Modern uses are mostly for handles of things, many times knives. Its because of the fact that it stays grippy even when damp, like in a sweaty or wet hand.

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

I guess in Germany the stuff was called Pertinax (a predecessor of epoxy).

[@maikerumine]

Cool! That reminds me of the old pinball machine rotating multi contact plates to do logic.

[@frenchmarky]

Yeah I've restored quite a few old pinballs and a handful of them do have the same type a/c motor 100% dedicated to running some chaser lights, like 'Time Tunnel'. Not as heavy duty of course, no high voltages.

[@fintux]

Technology Connections has a very detailed series of videos on an old, mechanical pinball video, it has that kind of contraption for the logic of the machine.

[@heronimousbrapson863]

I remember by dad's "Audel's book of practical electricity" which he bought about 1941 (I still have it). It has a section on sign flashers. These devices dated back to the 1920's if not earlier.

[@FranLab]

I think that pretty much after the incandescent bulb became viable people were working on ways to make them blink.

[@christopherrasmussen8718]

My grandad (RIP) had a big motorized sign. It looked like a the Time Square zipper. It worked by have a strip of paper with holes punched in it (words and numbers) the hundreds of little low voltage lights would ‘flicker behind the strip. The paper was stapled in a loop and ran around wood rollers and went round and round. I made a few different rolls. Very intense work

[@Malphazar]

So I think the 2 small contacts are part of the separation from side to side, the brush needs to slide along the gap from one side to the other so it needs to have 2 gaps to keep from shorting out, thats why the little contacts arent connected to anything.

[@BRUXXUS]

I think that's part of the flexibility in the design of this part. As she said, I think they could also be used to have just one or two contacts sweeping at a time rather than the 8 at a time. I would think if they just needed the gap, they could have just cut a gap in the brass ring. 🤔

[@cyberyogicowindler2448]

The mechanism resembles the distributor of a classic car engine. The Enigma encryption cracking device Turing Bomb used a whole room full of such rotary contraptions. I always wondered how early scroll text signs (stock-market quotations etc.) with lightbulbs worked. They existed already in 1920th or such, so it must have been mechanical too.

[@PRR1954]

(if not mentioned) The early 1967 Mercury Cougar (car) had Sequential Turn Signals which worked a little like this. Gearmotor, then cams, then large "snap switches". Mounted on Bakelite then on a rubber sheet hanging in the damp corner of the trunk. After 23 years stuff warps but I was able to bend back to operation. Made quite a racket in the rear! Soon Ford/Merc moved to a transistor timer. (Same unit used on 1960s Thunderbird which justified a re-design.)

[@JamieVegas]

The digital version is a 4-bit ROM with the chase pattern, connected to a binary counter IC that feeds in an address to the ROM, and the ROM output leads directly to the 4 relays that control the 4 individual strands in a 4 strand chase animation, and a 555 timer chip controls the stepping of the binary counter. No microcontroller necessary. This is the actual circuit design used in the old Clean Sweep Skill Crane arcade game signs with the multi-stage chase pattern animations.

[@mattd5757]

early, simply complex mechanical computers... cool stuff, i remember working on old mechanical arcade bowling machines, they had racks of cam switch banks and stepper relays. thank you for the video, neat to see this stuff still out there!

[@azroger7526]

Very flexible design. Looks like the switch is set up to be an up-to 8 on and 10 off chaser for 18, 36, 54, ... bulb sign. Based on the wire bundles that were cut when the switch was salvaged, it looks like it was probably a 16 bulb setup. Anyway, thanks for the analysis. As always very interesting. This was common on theater marques on signs with the hand placed letters naming the show.

[@deadman746]

When I was a kid in the 1960s, I was fascinated by the moving headlines on Times Square. So I worked out how one could do an electromechanical shift register with telephone relays abandoned in alleys. After a while, contacts get crackly and are no longer good for audio, but the repair people didn't want to shlep the bad ones back, so I used them for computation. I later discovered 20/$1 neon bulbs worked pretty well and could be used for hand capacitance switches.

[@NullStaticVoid]

wait we dont get a "byeeeee!"?

[@AskMeWhen]

When I was a kid 40 years ago I made my own stop light and used a cardboard Quaker Oats container on its side mounted to a motor and some aluminum foil (using 110v!) to cycle through the red yellow and green lights. I also made 110v buttons using foil and folded cardboard.

[@wolfwood7219]

Fran as millennial I've really enjoyed your passion for technology. your nemo tube video is what brought me to your channel. I hope that the newer generations are just a fascinated with your electronic exploration rations. very much important work you do here. Also hope they appreciate your great musical talent.

[@ryancamp7044]

Another furry

[@PrinceWesterburg]

Franimation

[@shadymaint1]

Back in the day, my grandfather built something very similar to animate some Christmas lights.

[@Failure_Is_An_Option]

Never even considered the how. Now I'm theorizing before watching.

[@Prodemocracy1776]

Must likely the lights are controlled by a PLC (Programmable logic Controller) Made by GE Fanuc or Allen Bradley system. The main system talks to remote units that are hard wired to the lights. Disney uses them throughout their parks to control. All the animation program is written which it follows with different inputs controlling outputs.

[@brianredmond4919]

Love to have seen the sign equipment for the old Golden Nugget in vegas or the Dunes sign. Those signs were works of art.