It was absolutely normal to have the full schematic and part numbers in the manual in the SU style devices. They were meant to be user repairable and most of the population got higher education including many electronics courses. So "tinkering" with your devices was absolutely normal.
This was the norm as electronic products were constantly in need of repair due to the low reliability of components. Reliable components used for the military equipment. There were few repairmen, and the variety of equipment was large. So customers brought equipment for repair along with electronic schematic.
@@Admiral_Jezza there's plenty of good things if you actually read theory. Some of them include: No alienation, Free education for all at all levels, No periodic economic crises, More democratic workplace, Basic human right are not privileges (food water housing etc), More efficient production (read Paul Cockshott's works, very interesting stuff), Protection of the environment, Less work in general due to automation, More workers rights (even paternity leave), No taxes, And so on. Genuinely, if people just read more we could have all of it...
This has such a lovely retro look, very 1950s, from when they literally just soldered all the massive (oft hand made) components together, sometimes they didn’t even use a board. its refreshing to see something so different. Cheers Clive.
Looks a lot like the chunky old phenolic they used to do on stuff in the '70s, CHEAP stuff in the '70s! I'm thinking of old Radofin / Acetronic consoles in particular. Something about single-sided PCBs maybe, or maybe both those things are just a result of primitive manufacturing at the time.
Actually 1960s. 1950s designs were a bit different, particularly in the USSR. Also, a household air ionizer in 1950s, particularly in the earlier half of 1950s... well, no. That doesn't change the fact that in the USSR (and Russia) 1960s, 1950s and even 1930s designs were in production well into 1980s and 1990s without even the slightest facelift, and sometimes there are things that are still made like 60 or 70 years ago even today, in 2023. For instance, one can get an set of enameled steel cooking pots (or a chamber pot with a lid) with (or without) flower decals that look precisely like in the days of Gagarin's flight or Caribbean Crisis. Or even earlier. The factory in the town of Lys'va, Perm Krai (north-east of the European part of Russia), uses German technology from the early 1930s, albeit slightly improved, so that the enamel in question is of really high quality and original composition... Which indeed is a testament to brilliant chemists and engineers of Weimar Republic... While there is a heft of gloomy sarcasm in my words, it's not 100% sarcasm (as much as I wish it to be).
"220V" was specified because, in fact, USSR actively used THREE voltages through majority of its history: 110v, 127v and 220v. 110v was in train sockets, so «train-portable» things like an electric razors often had this as switch/screw dial. It was also used in some *very* old houses, causing a huge pain in the ass to their inhabitants. 127v was all-USSR standard until late 60s, when it was slowly phased out with 220v. Very slowly, in fact, last house in USSR was switched to 220v as late as 1990 (even in Moscow this process was finished only in 1986). Rural areas sometimes used 127v way in late 90s to early 2000s, if they were not connected to grid and used their own GOELRO-era equipment for generation and distribution of power. And 220v is a common standard we all know. USSR decided to switch consumer voltage to allow more current per wire, thus allowing for new and fancy stuff like electric kettles, electric ovens, et cetera, as well as saving on metal on countrywide scale. So, specifying input voltages when impossible, and putting voltage selector when possible was a must. Like, a fragment from a TV instruction of the era: >>>Before connecting the TV to the mains for the first time, you must do the following: a) check whether the fuses correspond to the actual grid voltage. At a voltage of 220 V, the fuse should be at 3 amperes; at a voltage of 127 volts, at 5 amperes; b) put the input voltage switch in a position that corresponds to the grid voltage in your apartment. Televisions are manufactured from the factory with a voltage switch set to 220 volts.
Also interesting that they had an oungrounded, IT system. The secondary of the distribution transformer was no connected to ground and you would only get shcoked if you touched both wires.
Supply voltage standardisation is a surprisingly recent thing all across Europe though. 220/380 V 50 Hz had been more or less agreed upon as a standard for new supplies by the end of WWI but existing grids had all kinds of odd setups. Edison DC (often 220/440 V) was used well into the 1960s in well-off city neighbourhoods (the ones that were first get electricity) and AC conversions often tried to make do with the existing three wires (+, - and centre/neutral) using 127/220 V systems with no neutral supplied or split-phase 110/220 supplies. On top of that there were some 127/220 V supplies with neutral and some oddball 150 V supplies. Belgium and Norway still have extensive 230 V three-phase networks and apparently so does Italy. I think Germany removed the last leftovers in the Berlin area less than ten years ago. Norway even has an IT supply with local earth, which is less than ideal as soon as there's a fault somewhere because the IT turns into a TT with dodgy earthing. 50s valve radios could usually run on 110, 127, 150, 220 and 240 V, some AC-only, others AC/DC.
@@Ragnar8504 edisons company had a much more shitty system. Not 220/440 but 110/220 V. He was a terribly guy and never invented anything. He stole other peoples ideas and patented them. He even electrocuted innocent animals to discredit the competetion of alternating current pioneered By Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse and several engineers including Benjamlin G. Lamma and Charles F. Scott.
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@@Ragnar8504 New York completely phased out Edisson DC only in 2007(!!!)
That thing in the manual illustration is a tube radio. Have a very similar looking in my log cabin, mine is called Ural, but there were many brands like Rigonda, VEF, Chayka etc. Pretty amazing that after all those years in the damp environment it still works fine - the only thing I had to replace is a turntable needle.
Soviet electronics almost always came with schematics, although often they were very messy and not well laid out, but still a very nice thing. Those MBM capacitors are oil impregnated paper (not in-oil), never seen one that isn't very leaky nowadays.
Makes sense imo, I'd imagine the Soviets would have nothing to gain by keeping it proprietary given how they ran things (Not that it couldn't be reversed engineered without much effort anyway).
@@shodan2958 I think it more boils down to the fact that for years (if I recall, up to the mid-70's when they introduced the Soviet Seal of Quality, the "mirrored K in a circle") Soviet products had zero warranty; and with the quality of some products it meant that you really just bought a dead weight. From what I heard, despite that fact, there was basically no "true" way to buy spare parts so from what I've been told, Soviet electronic magazines offered tips to fix common devices and also DIY ideas listed cheap devices (usually radios) where you could source the required components. Amusingly I bought a Soviet G&W clone and even that game come with schematics.
@@LeSarthois almost correct but not quite. A mark of quality (GOST), its more like a K turned 90 degrees clockwise in a pentagon, not a circle. If i remember correctly, warranty on items got introduced after the soviet collapse. And yes you were encouraged to fix your equipment yourself, or take it to the repair "shop" to fix it. The guys there did everything, from rewinding transformers to changing components. And there were a lot of these shops in the cities. Pretty much all electronics were mainly analog. And in the user manual you always had schematics, usually with values and sometimes even oscilloscope curve pictures on some TV or radio equipment for easy troubleshooting. So if something you bought didn't work, you take there it and the guys used to fix it for pennies.
Pro tip: Rya-zan'. Two syllables. If you really want to get fancy, the n' is palatalized. With that out of the way, it's relaay cool that they gave so much info on it in the manual, from field repairs right down to schematics. That's the sort of detail I wish a lot of things came with now
There's not really a "y" in there. It's more like R'azan', where r is a closer to r in "reason" than r in "rover", and n is closer to n in "niche" than to n in "noon". The first "a" sound changes accordingly, by becoming closer to "e".
@@hypnotised-clover Yeah, but Я palletizes the consonant before it and produces an "а" sound unless it's after a vowel or special symbols so the comment above was correct
127 volt was the standard mains voltage in Russia well until 1960s, before they finally upgraded it to 220. As lots of consumers still had their old appliances, transformers have quickly become quite indispensable back then! Lots of soviet equipment would also have voltage selectors on them for the same purpose.
I quite enjoyed this one. Old weird Soviet electronics our fascinating due to the general lack of access here in the west, are often overbuilt, and weird designs. Super neat manual too
These paper capacitors were one of the main failure points of soviet hybrid tech TVs and other consumer equipment as well as these diodes with flat leads. As for the board - yes, it is resin bounded paper and the 3D appearence of the copper tracks might be partially caused by thicker copper clad but it also might be a sign of the infamous poor adheasion of the copper clad to the soviet made "getinax" - the name this material is known in most of the slavic world, though the word itself is obviously borrowed as there is no slavic roots in it (probably the same way as we still call copy machines xeroxes).
yes, too bad almost nobody used the K-xx series in consumer gear of capacitors which are incredibly reliable, K42 glass sealed paper in oil, or K73 mylar caps
MBM caps were more or less ok, but Armenian electrolytic caps like K50-6 or K50-16 were a big meme back then. They were extremely unreliable (5000 hours or less), some caps were already faulty from the factory. If a TV went into repair - all capacitors of this type were replaced with other caps, without checking.
Soviet household appliances were very peculiar. For example, metallic mercury was often used in such devices. I remember back in the 80's we had an ultraviolet emitter called the Photon (Фотон) which contained a quartz glass sphere surrounded by a coil. Inside the sphere was a drop of mercury. When the device was turned on, mercury evaporated and ionized under the influence of high-frequency currents. The device was used for tanning. I also still have a doorbell called Moscow (Москва). Inside there is a glass capsule with mercury, where contacts are inserted. The capsule is connected to a lever, and the lever is controlled by a magnetic coil. When the button is pressed, the coil attracts the lever and the mercury moves, randomly closing and opening the contacts. Including the circuit that controls the coil. Another lever is also attached to the coil, which is connected to a hammer that strikes a metal plate. As a result, when this doorbell is activated, it makes very unusual sounds.
We also had UVC mercury tanning lamps in the UK with heaters as ballasts to limit the current and provide infra red heat. You can still buy mercury switches on eBay. The old mercury switches were extremely reliable. I like the idea of the random bell.
Once I had read an article about the use of ionizers in the journal for gardeners to control the local climate. Their design was given there. Pyramids were built from wooden bars. They were wrapped spirally with a wire connected to a voltage source of 30-100 kilovolts. The diameter of the base of the pyramid is about 1 meter, the height is the same. Allegedly, these devices are able to create an ascending stream of ions, which leads to the condensation of water in the atmosphere and causes rain. They were recommended to be placed along the perimeter of the garden.
@@fiatlux4058 Now this is definitely not known, but perhaps the Egyptian pyramids had a similar purpose. Maybe they were also used to regulate climate? So we can explain traces of water erosion on the sphinx. Of course, the size of these pyramids is much larger than those described in the journal. Accordingly, the area of influence was also larger. It is clear that if the pyramids were wrapped in copper wire, then ancient people took it for their needs, just as they removed the facing stone. Strange corridors and gallery inside the pyramids could serve to accommodate sources of electricity and high -voltage converters. They were also plundered in antiquity, since there probably was a lot of metal, which then had very high value.
You had me at Soviet lol I am a massive Soviet fan and have the largest Soviet watch collection in the UK and been accruing Slava "tanks" of late as I just love the brutal hard as nails almost knuckleduster look of the Slava tanks, just waiting on one to arrive and will be doing an indepth video on these heavyweights.
Earlier in the USSR there was a voltage of 127 volts (in some places, such as in trains - 110), but around the 60s-70s there was a transition to 220 volts. This standard is used today in most post-Soviet countries, with a gradual transition to 230 volts. I had a lot of devices where there was a 127/220 switch.
Working on a project I found myself needing to short out a fly zapper that was powered up, and I thought of Clive as I was jamming a screwdriver into the thing, and electrical arcs were buzzing away! LOL
I was half expecting a microphone and transmitter circuit in there. On a more serious note, it's in surprisingly good shape for its age. Even the cord looks nearly brand new. I really do enjoy that extremely retro look of the board and components of that era. Old Soviet Geiger counters are really fun to crack open as well. All that hand routed and soldered wiring and whatnot is just extremely visually interesting. It's like opening something western from the fifties or sixties, only in better condition due to the fact its decades newer. How likely it is to still be functional is a whole other matter, but they're still fun to look at.
It's new, as I gather. It's a leftover production thing (manufactured for lack of new products from a given factory), BigClive says it was manufactured in 1990. It's of course horribly outdated and quaint even for the USSR for 1990, but this is the point, it's an ionizer, an extremely cheap device sold for quite a bit more than it's worth, made on equipment/expertise that hasn't been updated in forever. In the early 1990s, various alternative medicine and quack theories were beginning to enjoy a rage following in USSR/Russia (for all the novelty, the newfound ability to build/promote/purchase them, plus the uncertainty of the times), and tons of defense factories switched to ineptly making random consumer products (called "conversion"). So the amount of crude quack products that look/are built like a military radio crossed with a dirt-cheap 1970s hotdog cooker went through the roof. The plug is a cheap plug indicative of late 70s - 80s for the simplest appliances, the style of decorative platic molding is characteristic of cheap products from late 70s, etc. Sort of like basic cheap utlility stuff from Aliexpress like travel water boilers, hasn't been updated because for the price, it still kind of sells.
На бывшем крупном предприятии закрытли здравпункт и списали оборудования. Среди прочего был и разукомплектованный "Ионный душ" 1979 года очень похожий на электрический стул. Над головой висела под напряжением полусфера с дырами и длинными шипами, а в руках пациент сжимал электроды.. Оздоровляющий эффект как у Люстры Чижевского, только мощнее в несколько раз..
I recognize that corona discharge wire. We used that in laser printers. Ionizers create ozone which is a cancer-causing agent. Better off with a HEPA filter on your central HVAC system. Allergies or cancer risk, your choice. Cool old tech. Nice video.
Ozone does not cause cancer. It's harmful at high levels, but is a standard part of natural air at low levels. Real ionisers generate less ozone than natural levels.
@@bigclivedotcom From the NIH if you can still trust them, "Long-term exposure to PM10 and O3 was found to increase cancer risk." You are also correct as it is naturally occurring. You can smell it if lighting strikes nearby. Or if you stick your nose to the back of a laser printer while it's running as HV is used to draw toner to the paper using fine gold wire called a corona wire for obvious reasons Newer units use a comb. I love your videos, and this is in no way meant to discredit you.
I loved my ionic breeze back in 2006/07. It was magical living in a desert climate. It was the best way to clean the air I've ever seen but the clean up was as bad as it was good🤣
Hi Clive, this is an interesting video. The way that neon is mounted is something I have seen done in some old Phillips transistor radios made during 1950s. I like the case style this ionizer has and it would fit in with my transistor radio collection. The two tone colour scheme looks great and that logo/graphic is such a nice touch. The booklet is cool as well and an overall neat design.
Thanks for an interesting and somewhat nostalgic video! Yes, in The Soviet Union there were many odd and interesting gadgets.I remember my wife had a kind of ioniser, like a handheld Tesla coil with an assortment of evacuated glass tubes to stick in the Tesla coil. You could then use it for massage, brush your hair and take care of your skin. Personally, I think it was mumbo-jumbo, but many people used it. It was flashing and flickering and produced ozon. By the way, in USSR, and now inRussia, the voltage is 220 V 50 Hz. The Cyrillic letter B is actually a V. The Cyrillic letter for B is the first character in my name. Boris
The board looks like they used wood lacquer as a form of conform coating. The copper thickness does look like they glued thin sheet copper onto layers of epoxied paper then etched. That would also explain the cutout for a literal rubber band to hold the neon bulb. That is the kind of manufacturing of electronics I have seen from 1950s era electronics along with the coated enameled wire wound resistors. I am surprised that they did not use micro vacuum tube diodes as they apparently are still available.
BTW. Paper-based board material, typically dark brown, quite fragile, is called Гетинакс. pressed and bonded with phenolic or epoxy resin. Bad mechanical and thermal properties, very popular in consumer stuff. And still people are lurking around and telling you about reliability of soviet products :) ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гетинакс
The bulky МБМ capacitors are also paper-based. Mostly consist of thin paper and metal foil, bulky and burn nicely when fail, and they fail often. These mostly go into consumer stuff.
@@mjouwbuis Oh yes, the famous PME271 filter caps. Generally any kind of MP filter cap, WIMA made the same kind of epoxy-coated paper X2 and Y caps that tend to turn into smoke bombs after 20+ years. The metal can types more commonly used in household stuff with motors (hoovers, sewing machings, handheld power tools, etc.) usually go with a loud bang and darkness while the small WIMA and RIFA types usually fizzle and smoke. A lot. And stink. I had one of them go in a Grundig VCR power supply last week. Both Kemet (successor of RIFA) and WIMA still sell those caps new, alongside PP film ones.
Everything in the USSR came with the full schematic: televisions, radios, tape recorders, record players... you name it. I've even seen schematics in instruction manuals for soviet made landline phones. Talking about the board material: it's more than likely a paper laminate, something similar to getinax. These boards are horrible, the traces tolerate no heat at all. The coper delaminates if you even look at it wrong, let alone try to do something with it. Regarding the diodes: some of them are probably have the markings on the bottom. That's the peril of using square body diodes with color markings on one side. It's true that the diodes look chunky, but that doesn't say much about the actual semiconductor crystal inside. The leads are also flat, so that's more of an appearance thing. If you flatten the leads of 1N4007 you are going to get something more or less similar. Actually there are also soviet made transistors with flat leads as well. One example is the iconic general purpose KT315 / KT361 complimentary transistors. They look weird, but are almost a direct substitute with BC547 / BC557.
Usually, but not always. Due to no IP rights for consumer equipment the owners were allowed or even encouraged to repair stuff themselves. Finding parts could be a serious problem though. But, these schematics weren't necessarily correct. They had to be included, but repair shops could receive better, more detailed and more recent schematics.
@@noop9k Schematics sometimes didn't have a later modification to the design of the device included, but one could still figure out what's going on, trace a problem, and repair it. I'm not saying it was a perfect thing, but it was good enough to help a person with modest knowledge in electronics to repair their device, at least in most cases. They were even helpful enough to tell you what voltages and what signals you should measure at the test points of the board. True, sometimes the print quality was bad, but it was still better than not having a schematic. Having said that, nobody says one can't repair a device without a schematic. It's a matter of knowledge and experience.
It should be added that there were reasonably priced books with schematics of many devices of the same kind with detailed repair instructions written for amateur repair.
Yes remember consumer grade products came from the same factories that made military products, and the old USSR had mandates that pretty much all consumer electronics had to last at least 20 years, and be repairable. Thus the schematic included, and things like fridges that you still find running, despite being a half century old, but still in use and working well. Also standardised parts in a lot of things, so the use of capacitors, resistors and such that were designed for military use. The flat lead diodes are simply because it is easier to make, you start with a long flat strip and punch the strip to make the 2 sides, and then assemble the diodes between the flat sheet ends, solder the die to them, and then use a mould that pressure encapsulates them. Then trim off the strip joining the 2 halves for recycling, and you have the diodes. You can leave the strip on for bulk orders, making them possible to store in a reel with ease as well. just have to test each one before use then.
@@SeanBZA That explains why I've found quite a few exported working Soviet camera lenses and bodies. While long past the 20 year mark (Including a 50 year old lens) the built to last mentality has given them a long life even if they might have a few quirks versus western vintage cameras of the time.
I have to say I remember the days when all electrical items came with a schematic, often when you opened it up it was glued to the inside of the case. Lately I have seen projects on the internet using the Voltage Multiplier, now I know where to get one prebuilt, 😉.
one thing I love about soviet tech is that they were expected to be repaired in the home or by a local repair shop. So whether it's an ionizer or a toy music synthesizer for children, they would put in schematics and other technical details. Of course they did this because their component quality left a lot to be desired as well as the fact that if you were lucky to get anything from the soviet state you'd better count your blessings and never count on getting a replacement if it broke-- but I wish we had that kind of ethos today.
@Thrinkethrinke That is a very good point, though I think it should be said that yes, on paper there was a guarantee, but often there were such shortages that getting the first one was a minor miracle and securing a replacement might involve dealing with long delays as well as the usual byzantine maze of Soviet bureaucracy, only to find that they couldn't help because you attached the wrong part of the proof of purchase to form 27-B and the issue you have actually requires a 49-D because it's a component defect. So repairing it yourself was often the most practical-- but at least they gave you all the information needed to do so.
I like the picture in the manual, a day bed/lounge and a old radio on the left, chest of draws on the right with the flowers on it. Reminds me of old WW2 pictures of houses around the EU.
We had that in the US for awhile. My early 1970's stereo had the schematic in the back of the manual, printed really tiny. It's from Japan but the US made stuff came with a schematic too.
I LOVE this design, especially the idea of using a "remote" emission electrode. Very cool! BTW, the note for the components with an asterisk says, "Installed as needed."
Very interesting! I rather like the decorative city skyline on the front. I remember we used to have an air filter that had a nice, hefty filter cartridge attached to a fan, with a pair of similar-looking carbon fiber ionizer... uh, things in it in the path of airflow, many years ago. It seemed to work, judging by all the dust the filter cartridge collected, but it suffered a misadventure at some point, and so it is no more. It is interesting how some Soviet electronics were built with pin-for-pin copies of "Western" electronic components, but others look like they are from an alternate history entirely, with big, bulky, atom-punk sort of components, all at once overbuilt and yet (from what I've heard, especially when I was younger) remarkably unreliable. I wonder if including a schematic was less as a statement of support for a "right to repair" and, perhaps, more of a concession to the assumption that the average buyer would need to repair the device sooner or later? Definitely an excellent practice for any electronic device, nonetheless!
Clive, the voltage in Russia is about the same as most, if not all of Europe: 220v, 50hz. Unlike the states where most household electronics operate on 120v, whereas appliances typically run on 220V like dryers and electric hobs. Washing machines are usually 120v. In industry,the voltages can be 220 or 440v single or three phase. I'm sure you already knew this, Clive.
This is the same here in Canada. Higher consumption devices are 220v like heater, dryer oven and water heater. But the plug in the wall are usually 120V/ 60HZ. Except if you live in a remote area like I do. It's still 50HZ but in cities and normal places it's 60HZ. It doesn't matter much.
The voltage in Europe is 230 V since the 1990s. On 3 phase you can get 400 V, not 440. In the US you can get 120, 208 or 240 V, 220 doesnt exist since the 1930s.
thank you for taking the extra effort to translate and read the words correctly! it's very annoying when people make videos on here and then try to read the cyrillic text like english and act like it's a joke...
My grandfather's brother bought a TV back in those days and it didn't work. He opened it and found a lot of parts were just in the bag taped to the inside of a TV and not installed in place. Asked my grandfather to look at it and they were able to put it together and get it working in one evening.
A little while ago I was browsing eBay looking at vintage displays (as you do), and I came across some soviet era VFD displays from a vendor in Ukraine. It was a lot of four basic 4 digit clock style displays. I thought it would be a fun project to build a vintage style clock using the displays, so I bought them. It would be using all discrete logic chips, and I'll see if I can get a plexiglass case made for it to show off the display and electronics. I was half expecting nothing to show up, but fast forward a few weeks and a package shows up in the mail from Ukraine, and all four displays are intact, with just a few bent pins. So I guess I'm going to have to make a VFD clock.
During my business travels in Russia between 2004 and 2014 I have come across some strange stuf there. In some hotels (old ones) it stated on a little sticker 127volts. I never stuck something in them but they might be crossed over from 127v to 220v. And that took some time there. Maybe even a period when both was on the grid.
The presence of other voltages would not surprise me. The Soviets also had an isolated 42 volt system in safety critical areas such as schools. Many countries started at 110 and moved up to 230 over the decades. These transitions usually take decades to complete. I understand there were even parts of the UK that historically used different voltages. The reason the plugs on the continent are not polarized is due to Europe's transitional electrical systems where 220 volt outlets were actually two different phases of 127 volts. Some parts of the world still use this type of 127/220 volt system.
Those components look quite standard for 1990 Russia. A lot of Russian components are very high quality, especially those made for the military, which post 1991 ended up in consumer electronics. I have a few things from Russia and they all have military spec components. Later, towards the late 90s, the quality dropped significantly and pots just fell to pieces from gentle use. 😂 I always liked that they printed the values on resistors.
Ive actually built a 30-stage voltage multiplier a few years ago. It works to this day, but it's, well, more of an electric bomb. I've used 1 microfarad capacitors and... no resistors. Had to dip it in engine oil when powered, as the contacts from stages 26 to 30 produce corona discharge...
Looks like something from the 1950s, if you didn't know any better. Until recently it was possible to get brand new, late model vacuum tube testers, they look virtually the same.
So this is a high-voltage corona as was used in older photocopiers and earlier laser printers scaled up to a room-sized device. Higher speed copiers always had activated charcoal air filters to reduce the amount of ozone they spewed out.
The appliance in the bedroom depiction is likely a am radio, maybe a record player radio combo. Days when TV was too expensive or non existent in some places of the world.
Reason why their equipment looked so strange is shortage and very limited variety of components. Designers of electronic equipment had to use what is available. Sometimes what what's available was not enough, so they had to come up with unusual solutions 😁
Speaking of unusual ionizers, I’d be interested in seeing an anti-static ionizing “gun” taken to bits if you happen to run across one. They’re sold to audiophiles to help remove dust from vinyl records, but I’ve heard they’ve found use in laboratories too, though for what purpose I’ve no idea. They’re entirely manual, not having a power source beyond the mechanical action of squeezing the handle, and they come with a cap thing that goes on the end that’s supposed to flash orange (a neon bulb, perhaps?) to show that it’s working.
I got one of those. There's a piezo crystal inside, nothing else. In the dark you can see a faint blue corona dot on the pin. Not quite sure if it actually works on records, but you can charge and discharge (and over-discharge so reverse charge) an electrometer with it with ease.
They are used in labs, because materials/chemical compounds come as very fine (and expensive) powders that can hold static charges easily. And to get the best accuracy and precision in their calculations (while not using a lot of chemicals) labs tend to very small and precise measurements to which even static electricity can throw off. Its important because some chemicals can kill you even when its 1 molecule in a billion water molecules, so you don't want errors in your measurements.
If I'm not mistaken, the ionizer is very similar to a ceiling fan which charges random particles aka dust in the air and gives them a positive ion and makes it stick to ceiling fan blades the worst.
Cool device, I was thinking you said "Ryzan" as in cpu processors lol 😂 Strange devices, and this soviet one is just typical of its era. I love old electronics. Very cool..
if you control your bench-lights with WLED , you could program a transition time where it fades back in to full brightness nice and slow .. it supports PWM control, so you don't need Ws2812 LEDs .. its a really simple circuit also, like one Mosfet one resistor at the gate and a beefy cap for smoothing, you can also have an analogue button like a volume knob to control brightness. ;) I love that you take so much care of your photosensitive viewership. Thanks !
I've always loved soviet electronics, the country's overall economic situation put them in a similar place to China today, where everything is cheap and readily available, but the culture and economic situation of most individuals meant everything needed to be built like a tank and easily repairable by any handyman to be commercially viable.
Readily available is a little bit of an.. overstatement. You could not get anything really and most of the times you'll have to know someone who knows someone to get something. It was cheap but limited quantities. People had money, but where were empty shelves in the shops and that's one of the reasons quite a few of them drunk themselves to death. And quality of items were terrible. Father told me stories how people in the TV factory he used to work, had to get a hangover fix (another half a bottle of vodka during lunch break or even before shift) so the hangover shakiness would stop. On the daily basis.
Ryazan electron tubes plant was a manufacturer of high voltage electronics, mainly ignitrons, high voltage thyratrons, high voltage rectifying tubes (radar equipment - 20..30kV) and mercury vapour rectifiers. I wonder if they were somehow related to this.
The Soviet Union was a multivoltage country. Rural places had 110 and cities ran on 230 based on what I'm told. TVs and radios have voltage switches. Some post Soviet places still have the lower voltage
I had few radios, a TV, a cassete tape player, oscilloscope, signal generator, spectrum clone home computer, calculators that had 127/220V voltage selector in a form or another. I mean that there were a proper voltage selector switch in some or a physical way to use only one voltage in others (the TV had a bracket that when switched showed another power plug for the power cord and the computer power brick showed another fuse socket for the other voltage; only one could have been populated at a time)
So Russian! Reminds me of when one of the early Foxbat military jets crashed and the US investigated its technology. It was a fast jet because of massive engines which had very little high tech in terms of avionics or metallurgy. It has lots of bakelite switches.
@@gingernutpreacher It should be noted that its EMP resistance was a side-effect of its rushed development and not a deliberate design goal. Aside from some specialized equipment, EM resistance was rarely a major design goal of any military equipment. The electromagnetic pulse effect has been greatly exaggerated by the media; really, if you're close enough for it to be a problem, the great big explosion is going to be a much more immediate concern.
@@TheRealColBosch it should be noted they used valves manly because they were behind in that area the BBC used a valve transmitter till 96 ( not sure on the date) Cheyenne mountain made a big effort to protect against emp it's only exsagrated on hardened military eqp domestic stuff is another matter do you think a smart phone will not survive
I’m curious how you came across 30 year old Soviet tech, but it’s certainly interesting. With the constraints on the production of consumer goods, I’m surprised an ionization unit made the priority list in a planned economy. It’s a very cool piece of history!
A lot of decent medical tech was produced in Soviet era, i have a UV+IR lamp for tanning, it is 3x my age and still in good condition(it is constantly used ) .
Hello. I use google translate, sorry. Small advice or request. When you look at the instructions, put it on the table and turn over all. This will allow someone to read or translate it. For example, at 1:03 on the left, it is written: "It should be remembered that smoke even from one smoked cigarette prevents the formation of negative ions for a long time." Thank you for the video =)
Ryazan, not Ryzen... Nice PCB layout and a resin equivalent of conformal coating. I've seen (and done) shortwave broadcast antennas by hanging a length of wire across the room, but never saw one used with an ionizer.
The ionizer probably stayed out on the dresser to fool the KGB, the shortwave was hidden elsewhere when not in use. "Antenna? No that is my Health Ministry approved air purifier".
Lots of 60s and 70s electronics came with circuit diagrams, I had a Japanese made SW radio which included one and when I worked repairing TVs and VCRs many of the older ones had a diagram.
I've encountered a 4 Gigaohm resistor in a radio microphone transmitter. I've absolutely no idea why such a high value was requited. It was a thin flat thing - looked very like some Soviet ceramic capacitors (those red flat ones), i.e. like a disc ceramic but thinner and red.
Got to love old Soviet electronics and technology even simple things like this are absolutely fascinating, In fact dare I say Russia even now is still a fascinating place - unfortunately politicians and politics ruin everything for everyone 😞
Russians have no technology the Cold War crippled them Examples all of there nuclear subs where taken out of service and they have no clue how to disable and take out and store the reactor they had to have the Germans do it They fail at everything because there is no free market they do what there told and cannot fail so they can’t experiment as much as Americans this is also the same with china the United States now owns all of microprocessor tech and nobody can use it and the United States owns the software to run them
Not only were all devices meant to be user repairable and you could get the parts for them - the population also got free higher education including electronics classes.
So weird that a significant majority of Russians are nostalgic for the USSR despite the generally held view among English speakers that it was the worst thing ever. Really makes you think...
@@jacobstern2150 I think it depended if you were in Russia or one of those Eastern European countries that the Russians occupied. My grandmother visited relatives in Czechoslovakia back in the late 1970's (Grandma called it "Slovakia", as she told the border guards "Czech is Czech and Slovak is Slovak"). Anyway it wasn't bad, they had a decent farm and a car, also the head of the house was some kind of local official similar to a mayor. Party members for sure! Grandma insulted their car (she had an Oldsmobile Delta 88 over here!), they insulted the size of her property in turn! Anyway the car sure beat walking (a Škoda maybe) and everybody had food and a roof over their head.
Very Nice, Instead of letting out the smoke, you're investigating methods of doing the reverse. Just got to be a trend setter eh? Interesting that the various materials still look good, negligible degeneration. Fantastic that the Manual was in such good condition too. Did it come in original box? You started to investigate how black the Neon was from use (5'58") but didn't actually give a description that might indicate (pun) how much use it might have seen. My guess is that it was originally a very expensive gadget that the owner didn't use much but didn't want to throw out. Good that it didn't end up in land-fill and has now had it's 15 minutes of fame courtesy of a friendly & curious bear.
Including diagrams and schematics were mostly universal thing in Soviet electric/electronic things. Only most complicated devices, such as electronic calculators and computers don't included it.
I love these old devices and ionizers especially. That fridge one, the triangular ionizer you reviewed still works brilliantly! A pal gave me an Air Tamer A302 and that works amazingly well off just 2 x 2025 coin-cell lithium batteries. It's quite old, but is still being sold... Your Russian ionizer looks very well made for the 1990s. Thank you Clive for such an engaging video. ...Just a suggestion, but to keep idiots from electrocuting themselves, put up a warning at the start of your videos. That should cover your ass, and keep YT at bay. Best, Wendi 🌻
This depiction is probably of a bog standard one-room apartment in a typical Khrushchyovka. 0:48 yes that's a bed and also a sofa, although the backrest appears to be missing, and the thing on the left is probably a large toaster oven. Source: I watched a lot of Bald & Bankrupt TH-cam videos and a few Ushanka Show videos as well.
The power plug reminds me of a German tube valve radio receiver I owned in the 1970s. I suppose it was built in the 1940s or 1950s... The house of my German grandparents, that was build in the 1950s, had the matching power supply outlets.
A lot of people get tripped up by the thought that if the first stage doubles the voltage then the next stage must also double the voltage and so on. This isn't the case; if it were, this would be called a voltage exponentiator. No such beastie exists! It's called a multiplier because you're (theoretically) *multiplying* the voltage by the number of stages. Also, as Clive mentioned in his live build of a multiplier on a 3D printed form, there are always losses, so while there is no theoretical limit to how high you can multiply the voltage this way, you rapidly reach a point of diminishing returns.
Damn that's some old school font design in the logo... Hey, if you get something soviet/russian you can message me and I'll translate it within a day. It'll be better than Google translate, I think. Also if you need to find some info and there is none/little in English I can search and then translate it. Long time fan, thanks for great content
7:20 So, it even choohes! The plug appears to be a standard "Russian" plug as some call it. Finns semi-officially call it "zero class" and it used to be very common in Europe with non-grounded appliances. The now very common "SchuKo" plug is technically a derivative, with the same pin spacing but with ground contacts as well as cutouts to prevent plugging zero class devices into the sockets. This didn't keep people from trying though, and especially rubber cast round plugs were often carved to fit. This was not always safe because you could make a floor lamp or similar device designed for dry spaces plug into a bathroom socket.
This is one thing I really hate about the Schuko plugs, it's so backwards to allow grounded equipment to be plugged into ungrounded outlets while the opposite isn't allowed. People kept installing ungrounded outlets for as long as it was up to code because otherwise they couldn't use old ungrounded equipment, I live in Sweden and that was allowed up until 1994. Because of this we have way more ungrounded outlets than India for example.
@@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer This has also been my slight concern, which I brought up in Finnish Quora some time ago. Someone commented that it is a calculated risk, where a single SchuKo-plugged appliance ued in a dry space without its ground connection is not readily a great hazard if sources of earthing are not nearby. Any appliance should be designed well enough that it can do without earthing; it becomes a necessity in "wet" spaces such as kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoors. Yes, we do have un-isolated standard sockets in our bathrooms, in many apartments and even a plentitude of detached houses there is no other place to put your own washing machine for example. Most apartment blocks built before the 90's have a common laundry room to be used by the tenants, though.
@@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer Actually no, schuko plugs have the pins thicker that normal ones and the non-earthed outlets SHOULD have thin holes so a shucko plug would not fit. I know because my old house had old outlets in rooms without ground and in bathroom, kitchen were shucko outlets. The holes were different in sizes. Just compare a shucko and a non earthed plug. The main reason was the power capabilities of the outlet (non earthed was rated at 600W while shucko at 1200W in my old house). Now, all the outlets are schuck in my house, it seems to be the norm.
@@sebastian19745 There wasn't a proper standard for those so the outlets could differ by country in terms of how thick the pins were or the exact distance between them, so in some countries they aren't compatible like that. This is the reason why Europlug (the flat ungrounded plug) has thinner pins than Schuko and they're angled inwards, it's a compromise so they fit in old installations in Greece and whatnot.
@@sebastian19745 I don't remember seeing those. Which doesn't mean there haven't been any. As far as I know SchuKo has fit all Finnish zero class sockets I'm familiar with. Like someone else said, there has been some variance country to country.
Starting in late 80s when SU started to crack and crumble lots of factories started churning out stuff like this, from gimmicky nightlights to pure quackery to keep the lights on.
If you need to translate something from Russian again, you can contact me, I will be happy to help. Manuals for most Soviet devices contain detailed descriptions of how the device works and the electrical circuit. This is due both to the government's attempts to popularize science, and to the peculiarities of the Soviet economy - it was often much easier for you to fix the device yourself than to buy a new one. Therefore, many Soviet devices have high maintainability. This device was produced in 1990, it is already the end of the Soviet era, accompanied by an economic crisis. This partly explains the use of obsolete parts - they just used what was available. Also, in the planned Soviet economy, there was no competition in the usual sense, so the factories had no motivation to constantly invent something new. Many models of mass-available electronics were obsolete. Of course, advanced technologies also existed, but were often inaccessible to the average citizen.
The missing marks on the diodes are probably on the underside. It's good, for safety, that the output resistor is 1.1 Gig Ohm - not 1 or 1.09 Gig Ohm! - whats is made of? a glass rod? 😂😂😊😊
Had a cheapo lighter, once, with an LED light on the other end run off a couple of non replaceable button cells. Was curious why it was so dim, even brand new. It had a printed track used as a resistor that measured 1.2 gig ohm, and that solved as to why. Not sure if it was designed that way, or was a fault, but basically looked like an RFID antenna and couldn't see any breaks, so had to assume it was by design. No satisfying answers.
There actually were two voltages in soviet Russia - 220 and 127, 127 is an old standart, 220 is the modern one, so there was a period in time when both were in use, when standarts were renewed, but not anymore.
No, we don't have multiple voltages. Linear is 380 and phase is 220, but it is also worth noting that voltage fluctuate a lot and can drop as low as 190 and even lower in remote grids
You forgot to mention how much it cost. The price is listed on the back of the device molded in the plastic (everything Soviet had the price molded into the plastic)
The closed captions are a gas, "pointy needables or carbon fibrometers"... these things should exist! Reminds me of the Scotsmen in the voice-controlled lift sketch...
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
It was absolutely normal to have the full schematic and part numbers in the manual in the SU style devices. They were meant to be user repairable and most of the population got higher education including many electronics courses. So "tinkering" with your devices was absolutely normal.
This was the norm as electronic products were constantly in need of repair due to the low reliability of components. Reliable components used for the military equipment. There were few repairmen, and the variety of equipment was large. So customers brought equipment for repair along with electronic schematic.
common socialism W
The one good thing about communism over capitalism it seems, since there'd be no encouragement of planned obsolescence.
@@Admiral_Jezza there's plenty of good things if you actually read theory. Some of them include:
No alienation,
Free education for all at all levels,
No periodic economic crises,
More democratic workplace,
Basic human right are not privileges (food water housing etc),
More efficient production (read Paul Cockshott's works, very interesting stuff),
Protection of the environment,
Less work in general due to automation,
More workers rights (even paternity leave),
No taxes,
And so on.
Genuinely, if people just read more we could have all of it...
@@muha0644 damn, life must be pretty idyllic in the soviet union nowadays
This has such a lovely retro look, very 1950s, from when they literally just soldered all the massive (oft hand made) components together, sometimes they didn’t even use a board. its refreshing to see something so different. Cheers Clive.
Looks a lot like the chunky old phenolic they used to do on stuff in the '70s, CHEAP stuff in the '70s! I'm thinking of old Radofin / Acetronic consoles in particular. Something about single-sided PCBs maybe, or maybe both those things are just a result of primitive manufacturing at the time.
Actually 1960s. 1950s designs were a bit different, particularly in the USSR. Also, a household air ionizer in 1950s, particularly in the earlier half of 1950s... well, no.
That doesn't change the fact that in the USSR (and Russia) 1960s, 1950s and even 1930s designs were in production well into 1980s and 1990s without even the slightest facelift, and sometimes there are things that are still made like 60 or 70 years ago even today, in 2023.
For instance, one can get an set of enameled steel cooking pots (or a chamber pot with a lid) with (or without) flower decals that look precisely like in the days of Gagarin's flight or Caribbean Crisis. Or even earlier. The factory in the town of Lys'va, Perm Krai (north-east of the European part of Russia), uses German technology from the early 1930s, albeit slightly improved, so that the enamel in question is of really high quality and original composition... Which indeed is a testament to brilliant chemists and engineers of Weimar Republic...
While there is a heft of gloomy sarcasm in my words, it's not 100% sarcasm (as much as I wish it to be).
"220V" was specified because, in fact, USSR actively used THREE voltages through majority of its history: 110v, 127v and 220v.
110v was in train sockets, so «train-portable» things like an electric razors often had this as switch/screw dial. It was also used in some *very* old houses, causing a huge pain in the ass to their inhabitants.
127v was all-USSR standard until late 60s, when it was slowly phased out with 220v. Very slowly, in fact, last house in USSR was switched to 220v as late as 1990 (even in Moscow this process was finished only in 1986). Rural areas sometimes used 127v way in late 90s to early 2000s, if they were not connected to grid and used their own GOELRO-era equipment for generation and distribution of power.
And 220v is a common standard we all know. USSR decided to switch consumer voltage to allow more current per wire, thus allowing for new and fancy stuff like electric kettles, electric ovens, et cetera, as well as saving on metal on countrywide scale.
So, specifying input voltages when impossible, and putting voltage selector when possible was a must. Like, a fragment from a TV instruction of the era:
>>>Before connecting the TV to the mains for the first time, you must do the following:
a) check whether the fuses correspond to the actual grid voltage. At a voltage of 220 V, the fuse should be at 3 amperes; at a voltage of 127 volts, at 5 amperes;
b) put the input voltage switch in a position that corresponds to the grid voltage in your apartment.
Televisions are manufactured from the factory with a voltage switch set to 220 volts.
Also interesting that they had an oungrounded, IT system. The secondary of the distribution transformer was no connected to ground and you would only get shcoked if you touched both wires.
Thank you
Supply voltage standardisation is a surprisingly recent thing all across Europe though. 220/380 V 50 Hz had been more or less agreed upon as a standard for new supplies by the end of WWI but existing grids had all kinds of odd setups. Edison DC (often 220/440 V) was used well into the 1960s in well-off city neighbourhoods (the ones that were first get electricity) and AC conversions often tried to make do with the existing three wires (+, - and centre/neutral) using 127/220 V systems with no neutral supplied or split-phase 110/220 supplies. On top of that there were some 127/220 V supplies with neutral and some oddball 150 V supplies. Belgium and Norway still have extensive 230 V three-phase networks and apparently so does Italy. I think Germany removed the last leftovers in the Berlin area less than ten years ago. Norway even has an IT supply with local earth, which is less than ideal as soon as there's a fault somewhere because the IT turns into a TT with dodgy earthing.
50s valve radios could usually run on 110, 127, 150, 220 and 240 V, some AC-only, others AC/DC.
@@Ragnar8504 edisons company had a much more shitty system. Not 220/440 but 110/220 V. He was a terribly guy and never invented anything. He stole other peoples ideas and patented them. He even electrocuted innocent animals to discredit the competetion of alternating current pioneered By Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse and several engineers including Benjamlin G. Lamma and Charles F. Scott.
@@Ragnar8504 New York completely phased out Edisson DC only in 2007(!!!)
That thing in the manual illustration is a tube radio. Have a very similar looking in my log cabin, mine is called Ural, but there were many brands like Rigonda, VEF, Chayka etc. Pretty amazing that after all those years in the damp environment it still works fine - the only thing I had to replace is a turntable needle.
In SovietRussia items outlive their creators. In ChineseAmerica items die well before their creators.
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae planned obsolescence
AKA Radiogram
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae tis a survivor bias. We only know about old soviet things that actually survived
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae Saddest society truly.
Soviet electronics almost always came with schematics, although often they were very messy and not well laid out, but still a very nice thing.
Those MBM capacitors are oil impregnated paper (not in-oil), never seen one that isn't very leaky nowadays.
I was about to ask if they were paper capacitors... thanks for answering!
Makes sense imo, I'd imagine the Soviets would have nothing to gain by keeping it proprietary given how they ran things (Not that it couldn't be reversed engineered without much effort anyway).
@@shodan2958 I think it more boils down to the fact that for years (if I recall, up to the mid-70's when they introduced the Soviet Seal of Quality, the "mirrored K in a circle") Soviet products had zero warranty; and with the quality of some products it meant that you really just bought a dead weight.
From what I heard, despite that fact, there was basically no "true" way to buy spare parts so from what I've been told, Soviet electronic magazines offered tips to fix common devices and also DIY ideas listed cheap devices (usually radios) where you could source the required components.
Amusingly I bought a Soviet G&W clone and even that game come with schematics.
@@LeSarthois almost correct but not quite. A mark of quality (GOST), its more like a K turned 90 degrees clockwise in a pentagon, not a circle.
If i remember correctly, warranty on items got introduced after the soviet collapse. And yes you were encouraged to fix your equipment yourself, or take it to the repair "shop" to fix it. The guys there did everything, from rewinding transformers to changing components. And there were a lot of these shops in the cities.
Pretty much all electronics were mainly analog. And in the user manual you always had schematics, usually with values and sometimes even oscilloscope curve pictures on some TV or radio equipment for easy troubleshooting.
So if something you bought didn't work, you take there it and the guys used to fix it for pennies.
@@shodan2958Proprietary consumer tech-no. Secret and censored military stuff - yes. simply did not exist in widely available books and manuals.
Pro tip: Rya-zan'. Two syllables. If you really want to get fancy, the n' is palatalized.
With that out of the way, it's relaay cool that they gave so much info on it in the manual, from field repairs right down to schematics. That's the sort of detail I wish a lot of things came with now
There's not really a "y" in there. It's more like R'azan', where r is a closer to r in "reason" than r in "rover", and n is closer to n in "niche" than to n in "noon". The first "a" sound changes accordingly, by becoming closer to "e".
Я is Ya, and should be pronounced "ya", so it's actually "R-ya-zan", not "Rye-a-zan".
Why does the 'n' need to be palletised? Is it going to be picked up by a forklift?
@@hypnotised-clover Yeah, but Я palletizes the consonant before it and produces an "а" sound unless it's after a vowel or special symbols so the comment above was correct
@@kgb4150 I'm going to kill myself.
127 volt was the standard mains voltage in Russia well until 1960s, before they finally upgraded it to 220. As lots of consumers still had their old appliances, transformers have quickly become quite indispensable back then! Lots of soviet equipment would also have voltage selectors on them for the same purpose.
I quite enjoyed this one. Old weird Soviet electronics our fascinating due to the general lack of access here in the west, are often overbuilt, and weird designs.
Super neat manual too
Really fascinating. Please do more interesting old electronics!
+1
Yes the old stuff is interesting.
Thanks Clive
I'd love to see him dive into some stuff from the tube era
Vintage 🙂
@@maxs.3238 maybe get some good bangs out of them
What an alien concept. A manuel that describes how the product works in a language the consumer can understand.
These paper capacitors were one of the main failure points of soviet hybrid tech TVs and other consumer equipment as well as these diodes with flat leads. As for the board - yes, it is resin bounded paper and the 3D appearence of the copper tracks might be partially caused by thicker copper clad but it also might be a sign of the infamous poor adheasion of the copper clad to the soviet made "getinax" - the name this material is known in most of the slavic world, though the word itself is obviously borrowed as there is no slavic roots in it (probably the same way as we still call copy machines xeroxes).
"Getinax" sounds like it was borrowed from the brand name "Pertinax" - resign reinforced paper.
@@thes764 I know Pertinax only as a roman emperor one in the "year of the five emperors" - AD 193.
yes, too bad almost nobody used the K-xx series in consumer gear of capacitors which are incredibly reliable, K42 glass sealed paper in oil, or K73 mylar caps
MBM caps were more or less ok, but Armenian electrolytic caps like K50-6 or K50-16 were a big meme back then. They were extremely unreliable (5000 hours or less), some caps were already faulty from the factory. If a TV went into repair - all capacitors of this type were replaced with other caps, without checking.
@@Gelo9623 so re-capping wasn't invented by the retro/vintage electronics scene ;)
Soviet household appliances were very peculiar. For example, metallic mercury was often used in such devices. I remember back in the 80's we had an ultraviolet emitter called the Photon (Фотон) which contained a quartz glass sphere surrounded by a coil. Inside the sphere was a drop of mercury. When the device was turned on, mercury evaporated and ionized under the influence of high-frequency currents. The device was used for tanning. I also still have a doorbell called Moscow (Москва). Inside there is a glass capsule with mercury, where contacts are inserted. The capsule is connected to a lever, and the lever is controlled by a magnetic coil. When the button is pressed, the coil attracts the lever and the mercury moves, randomly closing and opening the contacts. Including the circuit that controls the coil. Another lever is also attached to the coil, which is connected to a hammer that strikes a metal plate. As a result, when this doorbell is activated, it makes very unusual sounds.
We also had UVC mercury tanning lamps in the UK with heaters as ballasts to limit the current and provide infra red heat.
You can still buy mercury switches on eBay. The old mercury switches were extremely reliable. I like the idea of the random bell.
Once I had read an article about the use of ionizers in the journal for gardeners to control the local climate. Their design was given there. Pyramids were built from wooden bars. They were wrapped spirally with a wire connected to a voltage source of 30-100 kilovolts. The diameter of the base of the pyramid is about 1 meter, the height is the same. Allegedly, these devices are able to create an ascending stream of ions, which leads to the condensation of water in the atmosphere and causes rain. They were recommended to be placed along the perimeter of the garden.
Very eco-friendly...
@@fiatlux4058 Now this is definitely not known, but perhaps the Egyptian pyramids had a similar purpose. Maybe they were also used to regulate climate? So we can explain traces of water erosion on the sphinx. Of course, the size of these pyramids is much larger than those described in the journal. Accordingly, the area of influence was also larger. It is clear that if the pyramids were wrapped in copper wire, then ancient people took it for their needs, just as they removed the facing stone. Strange corridors and gallery inside the pyramids could serve to accommodate sources of electricity and high -voltage converters. They were also plundered in antiquity, since there probably was a lot of metal, which then had very high value.
Is this the Moscow doorbell sound you are thinking of? th-cam.com/video/FAEBOKNRt30/w-d-xo.html
You had me at Soviet lol I am a massive Soviet fan and have the largest Soviet watch collection in the UK and been accruing Slava "tanks" of late as I just love the brutal hard as nails almost knuckleduster look of the Slava tanks, just waiting on one to arrive and will be doing an indepth video on these heavyweights.
Earlier in the USSR there was a voltage of 127 volts (in some places, such as in trains - 110), but around the 60s-70s there was a transition to 220 volts. This standard is used today in most post-Soviet countries, with a gradual transition to 230 volts. I had a lot of devices where there was a 127/220 switch.
Working on a project I found myself needing to short out a fly zapper that was powered up, and I thought of Clive as I was jamming a screwdriver into the thing, and electrical arcs were buzzing away! LOL
I was half expecting a microphone and transmitter circuit in there. On a more serious note, it's in surprisingly good shape for its age. Even the cord looks nearly brand new. I really do enjoy that extremely retro look of the board and components of that era. Old Soviet Geiger counters are really fun to crack open as well. All that hand routed and soldered wiring and whatnot is just extremely visually interesting. It's like opening something western from the fifties or sixties, only in better condition due to the fact its decades newer. How likely it is to still be functional is a whole other matter, but they're still fun to look at.
It's new, as I gather. It's a leftover production thing (manufactured for lack of new products from a given factory), BigClive says it was manufactured in 1990. It's of course horribly outdated and quaint even for the USSR for 1990, but this is the point, it's an ionizer, an extremely cheap device sold for quite a bit more than it's worth, made on equipment/expertise that hasn't been updated in forever.
In the early 1990s, various alternative medicine and quack theories were beginning to enjoy a rage following in USSR/Russia (for all the novelty, the newfound ability to build/promote/purchase them, plus the uncertainty of the times), and tons of defense factories switched to ineptly making random consumer products (called "conversion").
So the amount of crude quack products that look/are built like a military radio crossed with a dirt-cheap 1970s hotdog cooker went through the roof.
The plug is a cheap plug indicative of late 70s - 80s for the simplest appliances, the style of decorative platic molding is characteristic of cheap products from late 70s, etc. Sort of like basic cheap utlility stuff from Aliexpress like travel water boilers, hasn't been updated because for the price, it still kind of sells.
На бывшем крупном предприятии закрытли здравпункт и списали оборудования. Среди прочего был и разукомплектованный "Ионный душ" 1979 года очень похожий на электрический стул.
Над головой висела под напряжением полусфера с дырами и длинными шипами, а в руках пациент сжимал электроды.. Оздоровляющий эффект как у Люстры Чижевского, только мощнее в несколько раз..
Похоже на странную машину. Интересно, основным эффектом было образование озона?
I recognize that corona discharge wire. We used that in laser printers. Ionizers create ozone which is a cancer-causing agent. Better off with a HEPA filter on your central HVAC system. Allergies or cancer risk, your choice. Cool old tech. Nice video.
Ozone does not cause cancer. It's harmful at high levels, but is a standard part of natural air at low levels. Real ionisers generate less ozone than natural levels.
@@bigclivedotcom From the NIH if you can still trust them, "Long-term exposure to PM10 and O3 was found to increase cancer risk." You are also correct as it is naturally occurring. You can smell it if lighting strikes nearby. Or if you stick your nose to the back of a laser printer while it's running as HV is used to draw toner to the paper using fine gold wire called a corona wire for obvious reasons Newer units use a comb. I love your videos, and this is in no way meant to discredit you.
I loved my ionic breeze back in 2006/07. It was magical living in a desert climate. It was the best way to clean the air I've ever seen but the clean up was as bad as it was good🤣
Hi Clive, this is an interesting video. The way that neon is mounted is something I have seen done in some old Phillips transistor radios made during 1950s. I like the case style this ionizer has and it would fit in with my transistor radio collection. The two tone colour scheme looks great and that logo/graphic is such a nice touch. The booklet is cool as well and an overall neat design.
Thanks for an interesting and somewhat nostalgic video! Yes, in The Soviet Union there were many odd and interesting gadgets.I remember my wife had a kind of ioniser, like a handheld Tesla coil with an assortment of evacuated glass tubes to stick in the Tesla coil. You could then use it for massage, brush your hair and take care of your skin. Personally, I think it was mumbo-jumbo, but many people used it. It was flashing and flickering and produced ozon. By the way, in USSR, and now inRussia, the voltage is 220 V 50 Hz. The Cyrillic letter B is actually a V. The Cyrillic letter for B is the first character in my name.
Boris
The board looks like they used wood lacquer as a form of conform coating. The copper thickness does look like they glued thin sheet copper onto layers of epoxied paper then etched. That would also explain the cutout for a literal rubber band to hold the neon bulb. That is the kind of manufacturing of electronics I have seen from 1950s era electronics along with the coated enameled wire wound resistors. I am surprised that they did not use micro vacuum tube diodes as they apparently are still available.
It was typical to use Zaponlack to cover soldered electronic boards.
BTW. Paper-based board material, typically dark brown, quite fragile, is called Гетинакс. pressed and bonded with phenolic or epoxy resin. Bad mechanical and thermal properties, very popular in consumer stuff. And still people are lurking around and telling you about reliability of soviet products :)
ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гетинакс
The bulky МБМ capacitors are also paper-based. Mostly consist of thin paper and metal foil, bulky and burn nicely when fail, and they fail often. These mostly go into consumer stuff.
@@noop9k Almost as if that's were RIFA got its inspiration from.
@@mjouwbuis Oh yes, the famous PME271 filter caps. Generally any kind of MP filter cap, WIMA made the same kind of epoxy-coated paper X2 and Y caps that tend to turn into smoke bombs after 20+ years. The metal can types more commonly used in household stuff with motors (hoovers, sewing machings, handheld power tools, etc.) usually go with a loud bang and darkness while the small WIMA and RIFA types usually fizzle and smoke. A lot. And stink. I had one of them go in a Grundig VCR power supply last week. Both Kemet (successor of RIFA) and WIMA still sell those caps new, alongside PP film ones.
Everything in the USSR came with the full schematic: televisions, radios, tape recorders, record players... you name it. I've even seen schematics in instruction manuals for soviet made landline phones.
Talking about the board material: it's more than likely a paper laminate, something similar to getinax. These boards are horrible, the traces tolerate no heat at all. The coper delaminates if you even look at it wrong, let alone try to do something with it. Regarding the diodes: some of them are probably have the markings on the bottom. That's the peril of using square body diodes with color markings on one side. It's true that the diodes look chunky, but that doesn't say much about the actual semiconductor crystal inside. The leads are also flat, so that's more of an appearance thing. If you flatten the leads of 1N4007 you are going to get something more or less similar. Actually there are also soviet made transistors with flat leads as well. One example is the iconic general purpose KT315 / KT361 complimentary transistors. They look weird, but are almost a direct substitute with BC547 / BC557.
Usually, but not always. Due to no IP rights for consumer equipment the owners were allowed or even encouraged to repair stuff themselves. Finding parts could be a serious problem though. But, these schematics weren't necessarily correct. They had to be included, but repair shops could receive better, more detailed and more recent schematics.
@@noop9k Schematics sometimes didn't have a later modification to the design of the device included, but one could still figure out what's going on, trace a problem, and repair it. I'm not saying it was a perfect thing, but it was good enough to help a person with modest knowledge in electronics to repair their device, at least in most cases. They were even helpful enough to tell you what voltages and what signals you should measure at the test points of the board. True, sometimes the print quality was bad, but it was still better than not having a schematic. Having said that, nobody says one can't repair a device without a schematic. It's a matter of knowledge and experience.
It should be added that there were reasonably priced books with schematics of many devices of the same kind with detailed repair instructions written for amateur repair.
Yes remember consumer grade products came from the same factories that made military products, and the old USSR had mandates that pretty much all consumer electronics had to last at least 20 years, and be repairable. Thus the schematic included, and things like fridges that you still find running, despite being a half century old, but still in use and working well. Also standardised parts in a lot of things, so the use of capacitors, resistors and such that were designed for military use. The flat lead diodes are simply because it is easier to make, you start with a long flat strip and punch the strip to make the 2 sides, and then assemble the diodes between the flat sheet ends, solder the die to them, and then use a mould that pressure encapsulates them. Then trim off the strip joining the 2 halves for recycling, and you have the diodes. You can leave the strip on for bulk orders, making them possible to store in a reel with ease as well. just have to test each one before use then.
@@SeanBZA That explains why I've found quite a few exported working Soviet camera lenses and bodies. While long past the 20 year mark (Including a 50 year old lens) the built to last mentality has given them a long life even if they might have a few quirks versus western vintage cameras of the time.
I have to say I remember the days when all electrical items came with a schematic, often when you opened it up it was glued to the inside of the case.
Lately I have seen projects on the internet using the Voltage Multiplier, now I know where to get one prebuilt, 😉.
these we don't have the "right to repair". Indeed, we don't even OWN most of the items.
one thing I love about soviet tech is that they were expected to be repaired in the home or by a local repair shop. So whether it's an ionizer or a toy music synthesizer for children, they would put in schematics and other technical details. Of course they did this because their component quality left a lot to be desired as well as the fact that if you were lucky to get anything from the soviet state you'd better count your blessings and never count on getting a replacement if it broke-- but I wish we had that kind of ethos today.
@Thrinkethrinke That is a very good point, though I think it should be said that yes, on paper there was a guarantee, but often there were such shortages that getting the first one was a minor miracle and securing a replacement might involve dealing with long delays as well as the usual byzantine maze of Soviet bureaucracy, only to find that they couldn't help because you attached the wrong part of the proof of purchase to form 27-B and the issue you have actually requires a 49-D because it's a component defect. So repairing it yourself was often the most practical-- but at least they gave you all the information needed to do so.
I like the picture in the manual, a day bed/lounge and a old radio on the left, chest of draws on the right with the flowers on it. Reminds me of old WW2 pictures of houses around the EU.
That manual reminds me of the one that came with my Rigonda "Party Time Stereo" record player - One that I bought in 1974! Very similar artwork.
@@Okurka. That's a good point, since the EU didn't exist in WW2.
Whoooaat? Having the schematic in the docs is refreshing!
That was required by rules because repair-ability was important.
Absolutely standard in the east.
We had that in the US for awhile. My early 1970's stereo had the schematic in the back of the manual, printed really tiny. It's from Japan but the US made stuff came with a schematic too.
I LOVE this design, especially the idea of using a "remote" emission electrode. Very cool!
BTW, the note for the components with an asterisk says, "Installed as needed."
Very interesting! I rather like the decorative city skyline on the front.
I remember we used to have an air filter that had a nice, hefty filter cartridge attached to a fan, with a pair of similar-looking carbon fiber ionizer... uh, things in it in the path of airflow, many years ago. It seemed to work, judging by all the dust the filter cartridge collected, but it suffered a misadventure at some point, and so it is no more.
It is interesting how some Soviet electronics were built with pin-for-pin copies of "Western" electronic components, but others look like they are from an alternate history entirely, with big, bulky, atom-punk sort of components, all at once overbuilt and yet (from what I've heard, especially when I was younger) remarkably unreliable. I wonder if including a schematic was less as a statement of support for a "right to repair" and, perhaps, more of a concession to the assumption that the average buyer would need to repair the device sooner or later? Definitely an excellent practice for any electronic device, nonetheless!
Clive, the voltage in Russia is about the same as most, if not all of Europe: 220v, 50hz. Unlike the states where most household electronics operate on 120v, whereas appliances typically run on 220V like dryers and electric hobs. Washing machines are usually 120v.
In industry,the voltages can be 220 or 440v single or three phase. I'm sure you already knew this, Clive.
This is the same here in Canada. Higher consumption devices are 220v like heater, dryer oven and water heater. But the plug in the wall are usually 120V/ 60HZ. Except if you live in a remote area like I do. It's still 50HZ but in cities and normal places it's 60HZ. It doesn't matter much.
The voltage in Europe is 230 V since the 1990s. On 3 phase you can get 400 V, not 440. In the US you can get 120, 208 or 240 V, 220 doesnt exist since the 1930s.
thank you for taking the extra effort to translate and read the words correctly! it's very annoying when people make videos on here and then try to read the cyrillic text like english and act like it's a joke...
My grandfather's brother bought a TV back in those days and it didn't work. He opened it and found a lot of parts were just in the bag taped to the inside of a TV and not installed in place. Asked my grandfather to look at it and they were able to put it together and get it working in one evening.
This scheme is beautiful. The simplicity and elegance of it are great.
A little while ago I was browsing eBay looking at vintage displays (as you do), and I came across some soviet era VFD displays from a vendor in Ukraine. It was a lot of four basic 4 digit clock style displays. I thought it would be a fun project to build a vintage style clock using the displays, so I bought them. It would be using all discrete logic chips, and I'll see if I can get a plexiglass case made for it to show off the display and electronics.
I was half expecting nothing to show up, but fast forward a few weeks and a package shows up in the mail from Ukraine, and all four displays are intact, with just a few bent pins. So I guess I'm going to have to make a VFD clock.
I love old USSR electronics.
Everything inside is so chunky!
During my business travels in Russia between 2004 and 2014 I have come across some strange stuf there. In some hotels (old ones) it stated on a little sticker 127volts. I never stuck something in them but they might be crossed over from 127v to 220v. And that took some time there. Maybe even a period when both was on the grid.
Russian/Soviet things break but are easy to fix is a meme. True but a meme nonetheless.
0:52 It is radiola. Radio & Vinil disk player. Very heavy.
The presence of other voltages would not surprise me. The Soviets also had an isolated 42 volt system in safety critical areas such as schools. Many countries started at 110 and moved up to 230 over the decades. These transitions usually take decades to complete. I understand there were even parts of the UK that historically used different voltages. The reason the plugs on the continent are not polarized is due to Europe's transitional electrical systems where 220 volt outlets were actually two different phases of 127 volts. Some parts of the world still use this type of 127/220 volt system.
Im pretty sure my country was on 220V single phase 380 3 phase even before WW2.
I mean, the us is 220V single phase but most things run on 110V split phase
In many buildings in the UK there are still "shaver" outlets running half mains voltage with a different plug. Almost exclusively in restrooms.
Haha, yes North America. US / Canada 120 / 240. Probably Mexico as well.
soviet mains were 127V till 1960ies, full transition to 220V was finished by mid 80ies
0:52 I'm pretty sure that's a console radio unit. This ionizer might be from 1990 but the manual might've been kept intact from 1970s
Those components look quite standard for 1990 Russia.
A lot of Russian components are very high quality, especially those made for the military, which post 1991 ended up in consumer electronics. I have a few things from Russia and they all have military spec components. Later, towards the late 90s, the quality dropped significantly and pots just fell to pieces from gentle use. 😂
I always liked that they printed the values on resistors.
Ive actually built a 30-stage voltage multiplier a few years ago. It works to this day, but it's, well, more of an electric bomb. I've used 1 microfarad capacitors and... no resistors. Had to dip it in engine oil when powered, as the contacts from stages 26 to 30 produce corona discharge...
that circuit board is quite beautiful
Beautiful guts; love the super old diodes, golden oil caps, and oversize neon. I would expect no less from Soviet kit
I have Soviet calculator(электроника мк-61) from Kiyv and tho it's a very complicated device, it included full schematic.
"That" is a radio set. :)
TVs weren't much if a thing in bedrooms back then.
Looks like something from the 1950s, if you didn't know any better. Until recently it was possible to get brand new, late model vacuum tube testers, they look virtually the same.
So this is a high-voltage corona as was used in older photocopiers and earlier laser printers scaled up to a room-sized device. Higher speed copiers always had activated charcoal air filters to reduce the amount of ozone they spewed out.
No significant corona as they have deliberately kept the voltage low. I doubt this unit will produce more ozone than naturally occurring levels.
Learned something neat today, thank you.
I just love Ivanotroniks👍
The appliance in the bedroom depiction is likely a am radio, maybe a record player radio combo.
Days when TV was too expensive or non existent in some places of the world.
Reason why their equipment looked so strange is shortage and very limited variety of components. Designers of electronic equipment had to use what is available. Sometimes what what's available was not enough, so they had to come up with unusual solutions 😁
Speaking of unusual ionizers, I’d be interested in seeing an anti-static ionizing “gun” taken to bits if you happen to run across one. They’re sold to audiophiles to help remove dust from vinyl records, but I’ve heard they’ve found use in laboratories too, though for what purpose I’ve no idea.
They’re entirely manual, not having a power source beyond the mechanical action of squeezing the handle, and they come with a cap thing that goes on the end that’s supposed to flash orange (a neon bulb, perhaps?) to show that it’s working.
I got one of those. There's a piezo crystal inside, nothing else. In the dark you can see a faint blue corona dot on the pin.
Not quite sure if it actually works on records, but you can charge and discharge (and over-discharge so reverse charge) an electrometer with it with ease.
They are used in labs, because materials/chemical compounds come as very fine (and expensive) powders that can hold static charges easily. And to get the best accuracy and precision in their calculations (while not using a lot of chemicals) labs tend to very small and precise measurements to which even static electricity can throw off. Its important because some chemicals can kill you even when its 1 molecule in a billion water molecules, so you don't want errors in your measurements.
If I'm not mistaken, the ionizer is very similar to a ceiling fan which charges random particles aka dust in the air and gives them a positive ion and makes it stick to ceiling fan blades the worst.
Cool device, I was thinking you said "Ryzan" as in cpu processors lol 😂 Strange devices, and this soviet one is just typical of its era. I love old electronics. Very cool..
Russians actually nicknamed RYZEN CPUs as "Рязань/Ryazan" because of similarity of those words.
if you control your bench-lights with WLED , you could program a transition time where it fades back in to full brightness nice and slow .. it supports PWM control, so you don't need Ws2812 LEDs .. its a really simple circuit also, like one Mosfet one resistor at the gate and a beefy cap for smoothing, you can also have an analogue button like a volume knob to control brightness. ;)
I love that you take so much care of your photosensitive viewership. Thanks !
Great piece of equipment. the idea of a thin wire is interesting!
I've always loved soviet electronics, the country's overall economic situation put them in a similar place to China today, where everything is cheap and readily available, but the culture and economic situation of most individuals meant everything needed to be built like a tank and easily repairable by any handyman to be commercially viable.
Readily available is a little bit of an.. overstatement. You could not get anything really and most of the times you'll have to know someone who knows someone to get something. It was cheap but limited quantities. People had money, but where were empty shelves in the shops and that's one of the reasons quite a few of them drunk themselves to death. And quality of items were terrible. Father told me stories how people in the TV factory he used to work, had to get a hangover fix (another half a bottle of vodka during lunch break or even before shift) so the hangover shakiness would stop. On the daily basis.
@@grimsas readily available might be the wrong term, but there was a lot of them. most of it just never made it to the stores.
@@butre. everything on pre-order :)
Ryazan electron tubes plant was a manufacturer of high voltage electronics, mainly ignitrons, high voltage thyratrons, high voltage rectifying tubes (radar equipment - 20..30kV) and mercury vapour rectifiers. I wonder if they were somehow related to this.
The Soviet Union was a multivoltage country. Rural places had 110 and cities ran on 230 based on what I'm told. TVs and radios have voltage switches. Some post Soviet places still have the lower voltage
I had few radios, a TV, a cassete tape player, oscilloscope, signal generator, spectrum clone home computer, calculators that had 127/220V voltage selector in a form or another. I mean that there were a proper voltage selector switch in some or a physical way to use only one voltage in others (the TV had a bracket that when switched showed another power plug for the power cord and the computer power brick showed another fuse socket for the other voltage; only one could have been populated at a time)
That whole thing was beautiful, inside and out. I love soviet style. The very nice looking caps and diodes.
So Russian! Reminds me of when one of the early Foxbat military jets crashed and the US investigated its technology. It was a fast jet because of massive engines which had very little high tech in terms of avionics or metallurgy. It has lots of bakelite switches.
Yes it used valves but could take a EMP of nuke and keep going and before getting captured could not be jammed
The metallurgy was good, it's just that others thought that soviet engineers had some kind of a massive breakthrough, but they didn't.
@@MrPaukann Yes that's a more accurate description.
@@gingernutpreacher It should be noted that its EMP resistance was a side-effect of its rushed development and not a deliberate design goal. Aside from some specialized equipment, EM resistance was rarely a major design goal of any military equipment. The electromagnetic pulse effect has been greatly exaggerated by the media; really, if you're close enough for it to be a problem, the great big explosion is going to be a much more immediate concern.
@@TheRealColBosch it should be noted they used valves manly because they were behind in that area the BBC used a valve transmitter till 96 ( not sure on the date) Cheyenne mountain made a big effort to protect against emp it's only exsagrated on hardened military eqp domestic stuff is another matter do you think a smart phone will not survive
Something about old soviet electronics, I like it. I like any old soviet stuff, everything is "just good enough".
I’m curious how you came across 30 year old Soviet tech, but it’s certainly interesting. With the constraints on the production of consumer goods, I’m surprised an ionization unit made the priority list in a planned economy. It’s a very cool piece of history!
eBay has everything.
And ALL that stuff made in a very low quantities, so it be in deficit.
A lot of decent medical tech was produced in Soviet era, i have a UV+IR lamp for tanning, it is 3x my age and still in good condition(it is constantly used ) .
@@belofost Tanning is just skin cancer with extra steps
@@demoniack81 Not tanning, it is winter in Russia, no sunlight, so just some vitamin D
I wish they made manuals like this nowadays.
Hello. I use google translate, sorry. Small advice or request. When you look at the instructions, put it on the table and turn over all. This will allow someone to read or translate it. For example, at 1:03 on the left, it is written: "It should be remembered that smoke even from one smoked cigarette prevents the formation of negative ions for a long time."
Thank you for the video =)
Ryazan, not Ryzen... Nice PCB layout and a resin equivalent of conformal coating.
I've seen (and done) shortwave broadcast antennas by hanging a length of wire across the room, but never saw one used with an ionizer.
The ionizer probably stayed out on the dresser to fool the KGB, the shortwave was hidden elsewhere when not in use. "Antenna? No that is my Health Ministry approved air purifier".
Lots of 60s and 70s electronics came with circuit diagrams, I had a Japanese made SW radio which included one and when I worked repairing TVs and VCRs many of the older ones had a diagram.
So no Mystic Crystals, Spoon Bending, Zeta Wave Mental Projections then ! I luv the clouds floating around Moscow - in red.
Nice one Clive.
;)
At a gigaohm I'm surprised they even needed to install the resistor!
I never knew a gig ohm resistor even existed lol crazy 😂👍
@@muzikman2008 for a replacement, just pass your finger between traces and the finger fat will be the resistor.
@@plainedgedsaw1694 cool.. You go first! 😂🖕
I've encountered a 4 Gigaohm resistor in a radio microphone transmitter. I've absolutely no idea why such a high value was requited. It was a thin flat thing - looked very like some Soviet ceramic capacitors (those red flat ones), i.e. like a disc ceramic but thinner and red.
@@Bartok_J I installed a 5 Gig ohm resistor in my DIY microphone
I miss electronics that have the schematic inside the manual.
Got to love old Soviet electronics and technology even simple things like this are absolutely fascinating, In fact dare I say Russia even now is still a fascinating place - unfortunately politicians and politics ruin everything for everyone 😞
Russians have no technology the Cold War crippled them
Examples all of there nuclear subs where taken out of service and they have no clue how to disable and take out and store the reactor they had to have the Germans do it
They fail at everything because there is no free market they do what there told and cannot fail so they can’t experiment as much as Americans this is also the same with china the United States now owns all of microprocessor tech and nobody can use it and the United States owns the software to run them
True for most countries…
So the Soviets actually published schematics to their electronic devices.
Well they did that right.
They did a lot of things right my friend. Not everything mind you, but more than you would believe.
Not only were all devices meant to be user repairable and you could get the parts for them - the population also got free higher education including electronics classes.
So weird that a significant majority of Russians are nostalgic for the USSR despite the generally held view among English speakers that it was the worst thing ever. Really makes you think...
@@jacobstern2150 I think it depended if you were in Russia or one of those Eastern European countries that the Russians occupied. My grandmother visited relatives in Czechoslovakia back in the late 1970's (Grandma called it "Slovakia", as she told the border guards "Czech is Czech and Slovak is Slovak"). Anyway it wasn't bad, they had a decent farm and a car, also the head of the house was some kind of local official similar to a mayor. Party members for sure! Grandma insulted their car (she had an Oldsmobile Delta 88 over here!), they insulted the size of her property in turn! Anyway the car sure beat walking (a Škoda maybe) and everybody had food and a roof over their head.
@@gary6576 ehh the negatives outweigh the positives a lot
I love the rare glimpse into how the soviets made things, because the way they did stuff different is really interesting
Very Nice, Instead of letting out the smoke, you're investigating methods of doing the reverse. Just got to be a trend setter eh?
Interesting that the various materials still look good, negligible degeneration. Fantastic that the Manual was in such good condition too. Did it come in original box?
You started to investigate how black the Neon was from use (5'58") but didn't actually give a description that might indicate (pun) how much use it might have seen.
My guess is that it was originally a very expensive gadget that the owner didn't use much but didn't want to throw out.
Good that it didn't end up in land-fill and has now had it's 15 minutes of fame courtesy of a friendly & curious bear.
The unit came in a very scrappy unmarked box. The neon was in good condition. Probably due to the unusually high series resistor.
Including diagrams and schematics were mostly universal thing in Soviet electric/electronic things. Only most complicated devices, such as electronic calculators and computers don't included it.
My MK60 mikrocalkulator included it with a calibration / maintenance manual
I love these old devices and ionizers especially. That fridge one, the triangular ionizer you reviewed still works brilliantly! A pal gave me an Air Tamer A302 and that works amazingly well off just 2 x 2025 coin-cell lithium batteries. It's quite old, but is still being sold... Your Russian ionizer looks very well made for the 1990s. Thank you Clive for such an engaging video. ...Just a suggestion, but to keep idiots from electrocuting themselves, put up a warning at the start of your videos. That should cover your ass, and keep YT at bay. Best, Wendi 🌻
This depiction is probably of a bog standard one-room apartment in a typical Khrushchyovka. 0:48 yes that's a bed and also a sofa, although the backrest appears to be missing, and the thing on the left is probably a large toaster oven.
Source: I watched a lot of Bald & Bankrupt TH-cam videos and a few Ushanka Show videos as well.
The thing you are asking about at 0:51 is a radiogram or as they called it in the USSR a radiola. A combination of a radio and a turn table.
The old stuff and the cheap eBay stuff is the most interesting! Love your videos!
The power plug reminds me of a German tube valve radio receiver I owned in the 1970s. I suppose it was built in the 1940s or 1950s... The house of my German grandparents, that was build in the 1950s, had the matching power supply outlets.
A lot of people get tripped up by the thought that if the first stage doubles the voltage then the next stage must also double the voltage and so on. This isn't the case; if it were, this would be called a voltage exponentiator. No such beastie exists! It's called a multiplier because you're (theoretically) *multiplying* the voltage by the number of stages.
Also, as Clive mentioned in his live build of a multiplier on a 3D printed form, there are always losses, so while there is no theoretical limit to how high you can multiply the voltage this way, you rapidly reach a point of diminishing returns.
Damn that's some old school font design in the logo...
Hey, if you get something soviet/russian you can message me and I'll translate it within a day. It'll be better than Google translate, I think.
Also if you need to find some info and there is none/little in English I can search and then translate it.
Long time fan, thanks for great content
7:20 So, it even choohes!
The plug appears to be a standard "Russian" plug as some call it. Finns semi-officially call it "zero class" and it used to be very common in Europe with non-grounded appliances. The now very common "SchuKo" plug is technically a derivative, with the same pin spacing but with ground contacts as well as cutouts to prevent plugging zero class devices into the sockets. This didn't keep people from trying though, and especially rubber cast round plugs were often carved to fit. This was not always safe because you could make a floor lamp or similar device designed for dry spaces plug into a bathroom socket.
This is one thing I really hate about the Schuko plugs, it's so backwards to allow grounded equipment to be plugged into ungrounded outlets while the opposite isn't allowed. People kept installing ungrounded outlets for as long as it was up to code because otherwise they couldn't use old ungrounded equipment, I live in Sweden and that was allowed up until 1994. Because of this we have way more ungrounded outlets than India for example.
@@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer This has also been my slight concern, which I brought up in Finnish Quora some time ago. Someone commented that it is a calculated risk, where a single SchuKo-plugged appliance ued in a dry space without its ground connection is not readily a great hazard if sources of earthing are not nearby. Any appliance should be designed well enough that it can do without earthing; it becomes a necessity in "wet" spaces such as kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoors.
Yes, we do have un-isolated standard sockets in our bathrooms, in many apartments and even a plentitude of detached houses there is no other place to put your own washing machine for example. Most apartment blocks built before the 90's have a common laundry room to be used by the tenants, though.
@@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer Actually no, schuko plugs have the pins thicker that normal ones and the non-earthed outlets SHOULD have thin holes so a shucko plug would not fit. I know because my old house had old outlets in rooms without ground and in bathroom, kitchen were shucko outlets. The holes were different in sizes. Just compare a shucko and a non earthed plug. The main reason was the power capabilities of the outlet (non earthed was rated at 600W while shucko at 1200W in my old house). Now, all the outlets are schuck in my house, it seems to be the norm.
@@sebastian19745 There wasn't a proper standard for those so the outlets could differ by country in terms of how thick the pins were or the exact distance between them, so in some countries they aren't compatible like that. This is the reason why Europlug (the flat ungrounded plug) has thinner pins than Schuko and they're angled inwards, it's a compromise so they fit in old installations in Greece and whatnot.
@@sebastian19745 I don't remember seeing those. Which doesn't mean there haven't been any. As far as I know SchuKo has fit all Finnish zero class sockets I'm familiar with. Like someone else said, there has been some variance country to country.
I think I've seen this in a roadrunner cartoon💥
I love the Sputnik surplus electronics.
Starting in late 80s when SU started to crack and crumble lots of factories started churning out stuff like this, from gimmicky nightlights to pure quackery to keep the lights on.
If you need to translate something from Russian again, you can contact me, I will be happy to help.
Manuals for most Soviet devices contain detailed descriptions of how the device works and the electrical circuit. This is due both to the government's attempts to popularize science, and to the peculiarities of the Soviet economy - it was often much easier for you to fix the device yourself than to buy a new one. Therefore, many Soviet devices have high maintainability.
This device was produced in 1990, it is already the end of the Soviet era, accompanied by an economic crisis. This partly explains the use of obsolete parts - they just used what was available. Also, in the planned Soviet economy, there was no competition in the usual sense, so the factories had no motivation to constantly invent something new. Many models of mass-available electronics were obsolete. Of course, advanced technologies also existed, but were often inaccessible to the average citizen.
Fantastic, thanks for the detailed explanation.
Old Soviet electronics sounds like an interesting niche for you to explore Clive.
The missing marks on the diodes are probably on the underside.
It's good, for safety, that the output resistor is 1.1 Gig Ohm - not 1 or 1.09 Gig Ohm! - whats is made of? a glass rod? 😂😂😊😊
Had a cheapo lighter, once, with an LED light on the other end run off a couple of non replaceable button cells. Was curious why it was so dim, even brand new. It had a printed track used as a resistor that measured 1.2 gig ohm, and that solved as to why. Not sure if it was designed that way, or was a fault, but basically looked like an RFID antenna and couldn't see any breaks, so had to assume it was by design. No satisfying answers.
Close, the resistor is a ceramic rod or tube with a carbon spiral on the outside
There’s a common theme among these Chinesium and other electronic “gadgets”from abroad, it’s that Mattel red and white plastic recurring theme.
In the m90's ionisers were in fashion, every magazine and tv were pushing them. I do not see them advertised much today.
Thats a really nice looking old board and schematic!
There actually were two voltages in soviet Russia - 220 and 127, 127 is an old standart, 220 is the modern one, so there was a period in time when both were in use, when standarts were renewed, but not anymore.
i love looking at old electronics
I feel so soviety now. Thank you BigClive.
Good old days, my all valve Fender guitar amp purchased in 1991 had full schmatics in the manual.
No, we don't have multiple voltages. Linear is 380 and phase is 220, but it is also worth noting that voltage fluctuate a lot and can drop as low as 190 and even lower in remote grids
You forgot to mention how much it cost. The price is listed on the back of the device molded in the plastic (everything Soviet had the price molded into the plastic)
0:53 probably something like Rigonda-102 (Ригонда-102) console radio 🙈
The closed captions are a gas, "pointy needables or carbon fibrometers"... these things should exist!
Reminds me of the Scotsmen in the voice-controlled lift sketch...