What is it? Set 517

Posting from rec.crafts.metalworking as always.

3013) Looks like a device for separating seed from chaff -- perhaps wheat, perhaps some other grain.

3014) Sorry -- no guess on this one.

3015) Hmm ... I think that it is a rear peep sight for a rifle. The scale on the arc on the left is to adjust elevation for range.

3016) Well ... first off, a microscope (with some intersting fine focus knobs, I think.)

The degrees scale near the bottom suggests that it is for use with polarized light, which suggests to me that it is likely for crystallographic purposes.

The label is rather badly pixellated by the limitations of jpeg compression, but it looks as though it reads "American Optical", a long time maker of microscopes.

3017) At a guess, something intended to rotate a sample of some sort for inspection or for work on it.

3018) This appears to be the ball from an ADI (Attitude Director Indicator) from an aircraft (or a similar one by another name, including "artificial horizon".

The ball is held behind a glass in an instrument in the panel. It rotates around the axis it is shown mounted on to indicate a dive (black side fills more of the window) or a climb (white side fills more of the window.) Note the broken words "CLI MB" in the white half (at about 45 degrees climb angle), and "DI VE" in the black half, again at 45 degrees dive angle.

It is also tilted from left to right to indicate tilting of the aircraft.

The ADI which I knew in a flight simulator for the LTV A7-A also had compass directions around the equator, and would also rotate on that axis as well.

At a guess -- this was a give-away by a manufacturer of such instruments, to call attention to their product lines. It would certainly not be mounted on such a base in a real aircraft instrument.

Now to post this and then see what others have suggested.

Enjoy, DoN.

I would not expect a submarine to dive or climb that steeply. I believe it is for aircraft -- and as I just mentioned, because of the mounting I suspect that it is a demo device, or a manufacturer's desktop give-away (to congressmen and the like).

Enjoy, DoN.

Hmmm ... you need a better newsreader. The ones which I use (in unix systems where usenet news had its origin) mark all instances of a cross-posted article as read when you read in one newsgroup.

Enjoy, DoN.

Aw, you got me curious, Don!

I'm currently using the Newsguy.com on line news reader, which I started using after getting errors in my previous reader, but I agree that I'll have to find a better one sometime soon.

Thanks for the links, I agree that it's probably not for submarines, though I do think it's for training or display purposes since the ball is around 7" diameter and the one in your last link is about 2" diameter. Also as Lloyd mentioned the tape wouldn't do well in a working device.

They've all been answered correctly this week:

Thanks everybody!

Rob

Rob H. fired this volley in news:l514jh0va7 @drn.newsguy.com:

Rob, this: this is a submarine diving gauge, though a lot of people have suggested that it was probably an altitude indicator ....

No... "ATTITUDE" indicator!

And just a quibble... it's NOT an attitude indicator. It's a demonstration MODEL of an attitude indicator, for teaching and display purposes, but having no function of its own.

Lloyd

Got one... better than some weeks. Thanks for the recreation. I enjoy your pages.

Yes, my wording was not the best in this answer, maybe I need to hire an editor. Thanks for the help.

Rob

This shows that the seller *believes* it to be a submarine diving gauge, but I see significant problems with that.

1) The ends of the axles appear to simply go through holes in the gimbal, with just a thin washer between the ball and the gimbal to minimize friction and wear on the painted surface of the ball. 2) Thus no gearing inside to allow reversing the direction of ball tilt vs base tilt. (And something for use in a submarine would not be set on a desktop platform base, which would slide at the more extreme tilts.) (I would actually expect it to be mounted in an instrument enclosure similar to that for aircraft instruments. 3) So -- a weight at the center of the bottom would cause the indication to be "climb" (white top towards you) when it was actually a "dive".

Note that the aircraft instruments don't depend on weights to cause the tilt. They are driven via servo motors and synchro feedback and the direction of tilt is easily changed by the wiring of the synchros used for position feedback. The signal comes from the gyro stable platform used for all the navigation instruments, which is located someplace safe in the body of the aircraft.

4) Note the radial lines coming from the intersection of the horizon and the vertical climb-dive scale. This is used to indicate the tilt from side to side. And there is no provision in the mounting of this to allow it to rotate in that direction.

Yes -- there *are* early artificial horizons which don't depend on a remote gyro -- I have a couple in my collection which have

*built-in* gyros. One has the gyro spun by air sucked from the cockpit and exhausted through a venturi similar to that which also provides airspeed information. The other has a gyro spun by 115 VAC, three phase, 400 Hz. Both of those are prior to the use of a ball (easier to drive form the servos). Instead, there are mechanical linkages which move a horizon line up or down the same way that the horizon on the balls are designed to work. The horizon line goes up when in a dive -- just as the visible horizon goes up as seen through the windshield in a dive. (Assuming visibility is good enough to allow the horizon to be seen

-- the major reason for artificial horizons being poor visibility. :-)

And actually, the one in the puzzle and the web-based sale (I believe they are the same photo, actually) -- assuming that it is sitting on a horizontal desk -- if it were working on weights it should be indicating horizontal travel, instead of showing a dive. So this can be set by hand to indicate whatever you want, and it will stay there.

Enjoy, DoN.

Hmm ... perhaps a pointer in their newsgroup could get that modification made to their online newsreader. (I've never used it, though I've used Newsguy for quite a while -- with my newsreaders in my systems connecting to their news servers.

Good Luck, DoN.

[ ... ]

Well ... the one in the link looks very much like one which I have, and one of the two in the A7-A simulator which I helped build. It is closer to 2-1/2" as a full ball, though only about 2" visible through the front window. I also have one at 4" which is closer to the one which I described before. The flight simulator (and presumably the actual aircraft) had in the center of the instrument panel the larger one which included the compass around the equator, (thus three axis), and the smaller one was just capable dive and bank indication, and it was mounted in the upper right area of the instrument panel. And based on the capabilities of the instructor's panel, and having been in the pilot's seat (no co-pilot on this aircraft) when the switches were used, it is nice to have a secondary indicator when the primary one starts rolling on one or perhaps all three axes, depending on what synchro feedback lines were opened. :-)

I agree that a full 7" one is a bit large.

O.K. This stite shows a slightly different version of the A7-A, the "A-7 1 7" apparently.

with the larger ADI (Attitude Director Indicator) -- 16 -- top center as before -- above the HIS (Horizontal Situation Indicator) - 8 -- and the secondary one (Standby attitude indicator)

Enjoy, DoN.

Editor Chinesely, work velly cheep! Goodly san. You happy, happy, bling chop now.

That type of "humor" no longer has a place in this world. Even LDS no longer subscribes to this racist crap.

Marc Dashevsky fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

Weellll... some of them do! (we just had an example!)

I'm literally _surrounded_ by them here in Florida Cattle Country.

Despite what I consider to be their odd beliefs in an indigent New Yawker's imagined fancy copper plates 'n such... Other than that, they're just "folks". They're generally more _moral_ than the average run (not all of them, no), but other than that, they vary in behavior, dress, intelligence, and general biases just like the rest of the population.

Lloyd

It never was funny. And there is still way too much of it.

But we can hope.

Sum ting wong?

So, what kind of humor does Marc like? The kind where tea party attendees are blown up by IED, and then set on fire?

No Laf Marc. Man without smiling face must never open shop. Ancient proverb. Need more calgon.