General Electric 3T18SOL2 Astronomic Time Switch Vintage

  
This is an authentic General Electric astronomic time switch model 3T18SOL2 from the city of New York that was used as a timer for city lights originally, but was used as a timer by my late father, a physicist and electronics expert and collector. It belongs in an industrial museum, a real piece of history, and astonishingly enough it still worked as of this year when I took it down (screws are included).

Please feel free to make an offer! Back in the hallowed days of our transistor-anemic past, turning light bulbs on and off at preset times was a seriously complicated task - so much so that when the City of New York was hard-up for a way to control its streetlights automatically, they made the dubious decision to mount metal-clad Telechron clocks to every street corner. These devices, manufactured by General Electric, were encased in a heavy vandal-resistant cast case and have a complex internal mechanism that implements a 365 day calendar and automatic daylight compensation. The metal pins that operate the time switch are mounted to a pair of rotating levers that move independently of the main dial. These levers are positioned by a 364 tooth calendar gear that completes one rotation relative to the main dial every year, allowing the switch to automatically match the operating time of the streetlamp to the length of the day.

This item is in the category "Consumer Electronics\Vintage Electronics\Vintage Audio & Video\Vintage Radios". The seller is "bsmocovi-1" and is located in this country: US.

This item can be shipped worldwide.