found this in my barn in my pile of interesting stuff
I have no idea what it is ,do any of you?



one of the inside

Test fixture, most likely.

Looks like a tube tester with a "mystery meter" laying on top of it

Charlie

May be a tachometer, is there a capacitor in addition to the battery?

(((((May be a tachometer, is there a capacitor in addition to the battery?)))))

well,not sure,I don't see any thing that looks like a capacitor
the red BAT wire goes to the big switch and the black BAT wire loops back and goes to the big black solid box on one end and comes out the other end and goes to the resistors

I wonder what the significance is to the red mark at 72?

Do you think that could be a clue?
... the only 72 anything that I think of off hand ... is "normal" room temp ....lol

Hmm, electrified fence tester?

Based on a minimal and incomplete Google search, it looks like some sort of megger for auto spark insulation testing.

Jim Cross

interesting ,
well,
what ever it is it must have lived and died before the net and must not have been mass-produced as I can't find any thing on it on line ether
makes me wonder how many such testing things have been made and forgotten,Ill bet a bunch.
thanks guys

Looks like there's a bunch of other wires going into that black wooden box. I bet there's some circuitry hidden in there.

You may find some pretty elaborate one-off test fixtures. Here's one I built for the company I work for, following an engineer's design:

Alan said:


....and the tech who made it always got the blame when it didn't work as the engineer expected.........

He breadboarded it first.

Maybe the tar gum box is a high voltage oscillator which allos the battery to light up that neon
bulb, telling of high voltage across the jacks. Megger theory seems possible.

The meter seems to have the date of May 28, 1971 on it, so perhaps the entire unit would have been made around then. It also says "Made in Canada" on it, if I am reading it right. So perhaps "CDI" stood for Canadian D?? Instruments, or something similar?

I too think it may be a Megger.

I'll guess Capacitive Discharge Ignition. If I remember correctly, a traditional dwell meter didn't read these well.
But, that's a sheer guess. I have no idea what a red line at ~72.5 is meant to indicate. It's been too long since I played gear-head. Used to drive a little Chevy Nova that would reliably lift the front end. I wondered why my neck was always hurting until I put 2+2 together.

The CDI could be Controlled Demolition Inc or Control data Institutes, or one of the mail order schools of the era. The wiring is laced, so it was not a typical homebrew.
The red line is at 2/3 full scale where calibrations are usually made for a meter and the switch does have a cal position.
It might be interesting to put some batteries in it and see if it outputs the indicated voltages at the terminals - or if it is looking for voltages coming in there.
Pat

That is a good guess - perhaps!

I keep wondering about the reset button - had to capture a pulse of some type, obviously...

A good source of parts for other projects.......