Fran, in case you have to repeat such an actions with lots of screws, use my trick: (i) Place the plate with all these screw heads upside down onto a scanner and scan it. (ii) Print, cut and glue the image onto a foam plate of same size (thickness > expected screw length). (iii) Drill small holes into foam at screw positions. (iv) Start disassembling your item and stick screws at corresponding location in the image-on-foam, screw by screw. By these means you will never mix up screws while re-assembling your item !
She's only finding these due too the tidal sweeps of moving. I'm often amazed at the things I find looking for something else, even if that something else is a functioning ball-point pen!
2:36 Translation of the manual in German: "10 simple hints for the correct handeling of the Minifon P55 "S" and "L" 1) Install the batteries in the correct manner i.e. + on + y - on - 2) Check the motor battery meter - the indicator must be in the white field. If the playback volume is to low, replace the anode and fillament battery. 3) Insert all plugs completly into the sockets until the end. 4) Check the adjustment of the potentiometer (keep in mind the distance) 5) Use the right accessory for the intended purpose - e.g. (neck/throat microphone when dictating in the car) 6) When changing the reels make sure that the recording "speaking" head is in its uppermost position. 7) Put the recording wire reels on until they latch, make sure that the wire runs through the recording head's slot 8) Work only with the minifon when the lid is closed. Don't touch the rotating reels or the recording ("speaking") head 9) Press buttons quick and firmly until they latch. When rewinding, if the red light shines, press stop button immediately 10) *For the sake of optimal recording and play back quality use minifon original accessories and sealed minifone recording reels.* Beautiful 1950ies wording. Written by the engineers themselves - no marketing speak - except in the last line.
Looks amazingly well designed and assembled! Thanks for sharing. Gotta be worth trying a new drive belt if nothing else. Also, can't help but wonder, what you might eventually find on that wire...
Pretty weird because the first time I watched Techmoan's wire recorder video was last night, and then I wake up and Fran has made a video about one too. I'd never even heard of a wire recorder until last night
@Marcel H True, but not this dinky little thing. I suspect Mat will be looking up flights from John Lennon Airport to Philly right now to get hold of it. It'll be like Spy vs Spy! #o)
"Fran, your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to rebuild this Minifon tape recorder, making it faster, stronger, better..... this spool of wire will self destruct in 5 seconds". A conflation of two TV show opening themes, obviously! Or perhaps re-using the same spool of wire to record both shows, except that the bias oscillator isn't fully erasing the original audio as the second TV show audio is overlaid on it. Is print- through more of a problem with a wire recorder, or less of a problem, compared to actual recording tape? I realize I am showing my age by actually knowing what print- through is...
Bring the term wearing a wire into the light of day doesn't it. Magnetism being magnetism it will depend on how it was stored. On top of the old cerwin Vegas not so much lol
Crazy Glue (Cyanoacrylate) will glue belts together (works for old VCRs, Turntables etc)so make the belt whatever length you need right on the recorder without taking it apart.
She probably fixed it ages ago but I don't think an O-ring would have worked. Probably has to be a flat belt. There are repair belt kits for antique Zenith radios sold the same way. Cut the ends on the bias to length, krazy glue it and it's good for another 75 years. Has to be belt material though. Anything with more than a very little flex would likely introduce warble into the drive mechanism.
When you zoomed in at @21:21, it looked like there was another little tube tucked in there under the yellow wire. Wouldn't surprise me if there were another one tucked somewhere else in there too. What always surprises me is how few components are in these sort of vintage devices - radios, volt meters, etc. I've seen teardowns of early walkmans, and there's probably a hundred components crammed onto those tiny boards, whereas there's probably less than a couple dozen components in this thing. Not to mention how few active components there usually are in them, compared to how many ICs, transistors, etc. there are in modern devices. Anyway, it might be interesting to see a teardown of the power adapter as well. Being from the 50s I'm guessing it used a vacuum tube diode to rectify the AC from the transformer, or maybe a selenium diode. My money would be on the vacuum tube diode though. From what I've seen, selenium diodes were fairly large, and it looks like they've managed to shrink tubes down pretty small by that point, so just going by the small size of the power adapter I'd say it's a tube diode.
Yep Fran. I agree. Superb for its age. I’m a 69yo Retired electronics technician so I appreciate this high tech recorder. I was in Toronto, Canada at 11 yo (1961) when I first took interest in electronics. Tubes then & Transistor radios by about 1963 if memory serves me correctly. This must have been a very expensive device at that time. Hope you can restore to working order. Cheers - Trevor in West Australia
Hey Trevor, I got interested in electronics at about the same age, just ten years after you. I joined the Navy and started out as a WLR-1G tech, all synchros, servos and vacuum tubes. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think there was a transistor in the entire system. What I learned from it was how to troubleshoot. Now, almost 40 years later I'm a Network Engineer and am constantly shocked at how so many college-trained minds cannot look at a system in its totality and narrow down its functional components to isolate a problem.
Wow Fran, what an incredible piece of miniaturisation. Must have been assembled by watchmakers. So great to see such engineering. Looking forward to next installment.
The commonest vintage, "portable" wire recorders in the U.S. are those manufactured by Brush, and Webster, also known as Webcor. And by portable, I mean they're usually about the size of a small portable typewriter.
I heard the really big ones were extremely dangerous if the wire broke or came off the machine. It would whip around and slice anyone in the vicinity, so they would stay in a different room while it was operating.
@@chuffpup , Thomas that kind of sounds like an urban legend. But, one wonders if any early computers that used magnetic storage were actually built to use wire as the recording medium rather than magnetic film or tape. If one of those refrigerator-size machines used wire for the recording medium and the wire broke or ran off the spool, in fast forward or rewind mode anyway, I don't think I'd want to be too close to it!
Hi Fran, really great Vid! If you sometime want to make that thing function, please take care of this "Mylar"-Cap. This is not a Mylar, it's a Paper-Cap, called ERO 100 and these are notorious for badly leaking after all these years. Here in Germany we call these often "Zahnpasta-Kondensatoren" ("Toothpaste-Caps") cause of the whitish-brittle sealing compound. But there should be some more electronics hidden somewhere. The P55 has 3 Tubes (DF67, DF67, DL67). The original price for the P55 in 1955 was 730DM -or roughly estimated around 3000...3500$ today...
@@pearlmax Pretentious? He's one of the best on TH-cam for old audio equipment. Why's he a douche? The joke here is just that I'm sure Techmoan is envious of this recorder.
@@pearlmax ...Why not plug these tech youtubers yourself then, instead of attacking Techmoan? Just say "hey, not really a fan of Techmoan, so here's other tech channels I recommend", or something like that. Here, I''ll help you with some tech channels I follow: Tanner Tech - th-cam.com/channels/R1ARVDHnmTC3sUOkS4mUsg.html Uncle Doug - th-cam.com/users/Stratosaurus1 D-Lab Electronics - th-cam.com/users/dlab500 8-bit guy - th-cam.com/users/adric22 Big Clive - th-cam.com/users/bigclivedotcom Retro Radio Farm - th-cam.com/channels/NXdUWfWZHpaDdrOyesz1Cw.html NearFarMedia - th-cam.com/users/NearFarMedia
My family had an early 60's Dodge wagon that had what appeared like a red line that moved from left to right as speed increased. It was probably a drum which rotated behind a long horizontal rectangular window.
birdwing98: I own two ‘55 Buick Super 2Dr Riviera’s that are equipped with a ‘Redliner Speedometer’ that functions like this. I believe first introduced by Buick in ‘54. Just a drum with the spiraled red zone contrasted with an opposing black spiral that rotates horizontally and only visible through a thin slit to give the visual illusion of this ‘red line’ filling up this slit, left to right, as speed increases.
Ok, I am a HUGE fan of old tech. Your detailed analysis and admiration of this old device won me over. I find, repair, and resell old tech like this simply as a way to play with it, admire it, and buy the next one. This thing is AMAZING. Subscribed. Where in the HECK did you find this!?
Absolutely fantastic, the mechanical design, and implementation is superb, that must have cost the equivalent of a small house. Totally exquisite. Would the translucent feels be original fitment. Some O-ring cord could be wrapped around, and super glued to form a belt. Thanks for sharing and best regards from the UK.
I have this too. I bought in 1966 or something in Helsinki. These were already obsolete then. I have a green plastig bag for it. I’ve never tried to run it and never opened it so this was interesting.
Amazing how much was crammed into this tube recorder, its unbelievable, I only thought they made things this small when they started transistorising electronics, but this is actually smaller than the earlier transistor cassette players
@@jk9554 actually i repaired a W.Germany amplifier with a blown NE555 for the speakers delay, only time in my life i saw a 555 in actual appliance... but yeah, those were really good
At 5:40, " I said be careful, his bowtie is really a camera.... they've all come, to look for America....." (That's from a Simon and Garfunkel Song, in case somebody didn't catch the reference. It's the song with the line about hitchhiking all the way from Saginaw Highway. Was that one also recorded by Yes?).
Really curious Fran, are the batteries supposed dry cell, and b leak proof of the time? I used to have a rather fancy transistor radio in the late 60's which had an ever ready 9 volt cell, which had a cardboard shell. Used to extend their life by heating them in the oven. Driving my mother to despair.
I'm loving your 60's analog equipment on your bench. My dad's bench looked like that when I was growing up. Course, he wouldn't teach his little girl about much of it. He did show me how to sort resistors for him. Bad Boys, etc. Love your channel!
Hey Fran, I just found your channel tonight through this video and wanted to say Howdy as well as to validate you in your delivery and your communication. You're not only clear spoken but you engage we the audience in a conversational manner that not everybody does on TH-cam, as well as you. I look forward to exploring your channel further and I'll certainly subscribe :-)
A few years later and that could have been Transistor. I have a National (Matsushita comunication industrial co.ltd) four transitor reel to reel tape recorder which my grandfather purchased in the late 50's not quite sure but smewhere around 57 or 58, one of the reels still has a recording that he made of my sisters and myself when we were very young he died in 61, so the recording is before that date and from the sound of the voices the recording was made before 1960 as my eldest sister would have been ten by then and she sounds younger than that. When I I first tried it in the 90's after my grandmother died and I fopund the recorder in one of her drawers all I had to do was remove the old batteries that had leaked and put some fresh AA batteries in , 12 of them and it worked. Since then I have recapped it but dont play it often as i am worried about the tape one day I will have to didgitize the tape before its too late.
This is the kind of stuff that I was hoping for when I subbed to this channel :) I would be very interested to see if you could restore it. I would love to hear it play back something :)
I actually have a minox model c in my collection... Sadly the films are so expensive to develop that using it is not justified for me as a 17 year old student
Fred Stocking: Crazy how algorithms work (or, ‘not’ work, in my case). I’ve attempted as much research as possible via the Internet off and on over time, in my quest for learning as much as possible in just exactly how these Minifon recorders function and anything else regarding how to properly repair/restore them, as I myself have collected a fairly substantial number of these units and the adjoining accessories (have at least one of every model made; if memory serves me correctly, I own around 12 of them) ‘but’, just today, discovered this channel and video! Hence the comment about algorithms not working as good as folks might think. Roughly back about the time that this channels creator, Fran, posted this video, I was incredibly fortunate to have been able to find and obtained an extremely rare and original, fully illustrated ‘minifon P55 Service-manual’, IN ENGLISH!!!! It’s dated, ‘EDITION P 55/01 NOVEMBRE 1955’. This info is followed by ‘369’ in large, bold font type (November is spelled Novembre in this literature; possibly something to do with whomever translated the content from german?). On a side note: I’ve also been a long time collector/obsessor (lol) for anything and everything ‘MINOX’ ironically! Have at least one great condition example of each model and variation of models of them and, accessories/literature to boot. I believe that particular collection is at about 25 MINOX ‘spy’ cameras now.
At about 9:00 in, reminds me of un- snarling an open-face spinning reel when teaching little kids how to cast and fish. When I was older we would sometimes troll in the ocean with springy Wireline, designed to take the fishing lures down deep and have minimal water resistance , but if you snarled that spool of wire (from too much back pressure on the spool with your thumb as you were letting the line out) you might never get it untangled without putting kinks in it and ruining the wire. My grandfather got me into fishing, starting at age 5. An excellent introduction into the philosophy of patience, useful later in life when attempting to repair small gadgets such as this one.
The bottom of the power block said: _Achtung! Vor dem Abnehmen der Schutzkappe Netzstrecker ziehen._ ===> _Attention! Before removing the protection cover pull the powerplug._ Is there a hidden German fart joke? ;-)
Brings some memories! I demonstrated one as an educational student lecture to my classmates some time around 1957. I recorded a few seconds of the teacher’s voice before it was my time to give my presentation and then played it back at the beginning of my speech. Amazing!
When I was a kid in the early sixties I took apart one of my Grandad's old Medresco hearing aids. It had three tiny valves in it. It had a huge 1.5 V battery and a 22.5 V one in a big pouch which you kept in your pocket connected to the main unit which was clipped to your clothes with another lead going to an earpiece. I made a headphone amplifier with it. As far as I can remember the 22.5V battery lasted quite a while but the 1.5V one had to be replaced every few days. Compare this to my hearing aids that use a tiny zinc-air cell that lasts nearly a week!
I have one of these units. I acquired it as an 11 year old as a gift-repair, in its original advertising box. Fortunately, I fortuitously did not tear it apart. The unit was saved by the fact that I could not get the one rear main screw out. My unit is in like new condition on the exterior. Unfortunately, I have no accessories. Great vid!
I would've messed up the wire with that tangle for sure. Nice demonstration of care and patience. I was given several working adding machines from the 40-50s when I was a kid. I kinda regret tearing them down for parts, now that I have some appreciation for this stuff. :/
Thoroughly enjoyed seeing such an amazing piece of technology enhanced only by having you describe it too us with your voice. So glad to see the lab again and of course you and most happily glad to see things are going better for you now I'd be lost without your videos 😀
Those caps might still work, test them. I'm using a century old one in my car. I love how the people of the early 1950s still had so much detail in their work. As for the drive belt maybe you could cut and sand some old tire tube & lap joint it around the large drum until the vulcanizing sets.
That's so cool. You're amazing at what you do. Thank you for posting this one. Hopefully you'll have an updated version of this working someday. Take care.
Thanks Fran. I love your enthusiasm and your sensitivity to this old equipment. I noticed the tube (valve) was from England where I am. Interesting we supplied this highly specialised part to a German manufacturer not long after the war. Show us if you get it working
Would love to see more restoration videos of this. This thing is amazing
Fran,
in case you have to repeat such an actions with lots of screws, use my trick:
(i) Place the plate with all these screw heads upside down onto a scanner and scan it.
(ii) Print, cut and glue the image onto a foam plate of same size (thickness > expected screw length).
(iii) Drill small holes into foam at screw positions.
(iv) Start disassembling your item and stick screws at corresponding location in the image-on-foam, screw by screw.
By these means you will never mix up screws while re-assembling your item !
Fantastic!
I wonder what else do you have in the vault...
It's a few things. Some things.
@@FranLab "a few"
How about that little sub miniature tube? what a bobby Dazzler!
Dave, it's spelt fRantastic
She's only finding these due too the tidal sweeps of moving. I'm often amazed at the things I find looking for something else, even if that something else is a functioning ball-point pen!
One of your best Fran, thanks
2:36 Translation of the manual in German:
"10 simple hints for the correct handeling of the Minifon P55 "S" and "L"
1) Install the batteries in the correct manner i.e. + on + y - on -
2) Check the motor battery meter - the indicator must be in the white field. If the playback volume is to low, replace the anode and fillament battery.
3) Insert all plugs completly into the sockets until the end.
4) Check the adjustment of the potentiometer (keep in mind the distance)
5) Use the right accessory for the intended purpose - e.g. (neck/throat microphone when dictating in the car)
6) When changing the reels make sure that the recording "speaking" head is in its uppermost position.
7) Put the recording wire reels on until they latch, make sure that the wire runs through the recording head's slot
8) Work only with the minifon when the lid is closed. Don't touch the rotating reels or the recording ("speaking") head
9) Press buttons quick and firmly until they latch. When rewinding, if the red light shines, press stop button immediately
10) *For the sake of optimal recording and play back quality use minifon original accessories and sealed minifone recording reels.*
Beautiful 1950ies wording. Written by the engineers themselves - no marketing speak - except in the last line.
Thank you so much for sharing this Fran !!
Holy cow that is one awesome artwork..
A piece of wire can’t wait to see you get it going fully restored
Wow Fran thanks for showing us that 😊
Thanks for sharing this! Lovely piece of equipment!
That is such a cool piece of history you have there.
It's so great to have Fran back taking apart some antique audio equipment... Yeah!
Very nice!
Thanks Fran.
5:56 - Literally "wearing a wire"!
That is indeed exactly where the term came from lol
@DARK APPERITION No shit, Sherlock.
@DARK APPERITION Ekhm, it's a Meme.
@@override7486 "Its just a meme bro" "Just saying" "No offense"
Looks amazingly well designed and assembled! Thanks for sharing. Gotta be worth trying a new drive belt if nothing else. Also, can't help but wonder, what you might eventually find on that wire...
Oo! Techmoan is so going to want to get his hands on that!
8o)
Pretty weird because the first time I watched Techmoan's wire recorder video was last night, and then I wake up and Fran has made a video about one too. I'd never even heard of a wire recorder until last night
Fran beat Techmoan on this one!
@Marcel H True, but not this dinky little thing. I suspect Mat will be looking up flights from John Lennon Airport to Philly right now to get hold of it. It'll be like Spy vs Spy!
#o)
@@AaronJackson1 I guess you've never watched Hogan's Heroes... They featured wire recorders a few times.
Where do you think the term "wearing a wire" came from 😉
Incredible engineering... it's beautiful
You never cease to amaze me with the relics of days gone by that you present. Thanks Fran for all the work you put into your videos.
Awesome Fran 👍👏☺️
*That's what makes franlab unique on youtube* ❤❤❤
OMG this is the most impressive piece of electronic equipment I've ever seen for it's time period
so - the big question is - what's on the wire?
docpaul
YES. That’s the question ‼️
I wanna listen to it
The long-lost Nixon-Elvis tape!
Cuba Baion?
Longitudinally fluctuating magnetic flux.
Awesome, Fran!
"Fran, your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to rebuild this Minifon tape recorder, making it faster, stronger, better..... this spool of wire will self destruct in 5 seconds".
A conflation of two TV show opening themes, obviously! Or perhaps re-using the same spool of wire to record both shows, except that the bias oscillator isn't fully erasing the original audio as the second TV show audio is overlaid on it. Is print- through more of a problem with a wire recorder, or less of a problem, compared to actual recording tape? I realize I am showing my age by actually knowing what print- through is...
Bring the term wearing a wire into the light of day doesn't it. Magnetism being magnetism it will depend on how it was stored. On top of the old cerwin Vegas not so much lol
🤫
@@willrobbinson1 Danger, danger...Will Robinson (as I madly whirl around , metal tube arms flailing wildly) ;-)
The green battery padding is identical with the stuff you used to find on old Ping Pong paddles. That's a neat thing.
Crazy Glue (Cyanoacrylate) will glue belts together (works for old VCRs, Turntables etc)so make the belt whatever length you need right on the recorder without taking it apart.
this. wurth universal o-ring kits just come with a cutting jig and a bottle of super glue.
Thank you. Will try this on some old equipment that needs belts.
She probably fixed it ages ago but I don't think an O-ring would have worked. Probably has to be a flat belt. There are repair belt kits for antique Zenith radios sold the same way. Cut the ends on the bias to length, krazy glue it and it's good for another 75 years. Has to be belt material though. Anything with more than a very little flex would likely introduce warble into the drive mechanism.
Wow...what an interesting piece of history you have there Fran. Thanks very much for showing us this.
When you zoomed in at @21:21, it looked like there was another little tube tucked in there under the yellow wire. Wouldn't surprise me if there were another one tucked somewhere else in there too.
What always surprises me is how few components are in these sort of vintage devices - radios, volt meters, etc. I've seen teardowns of early walkmans, and there's probably a hundred components crammed onto those tiny boards, whereas there's probably less than a couple dozen components in this thing. Not to mention how few active components there usually are in them, compared to how many ICs, transistors, etc. there are in modern devices.
Anyway, it might be interesting to see a teardown of the power adapter as well. Being from the 50s I'm guessing it used a vacuum tube diode to rectify the AC from the transformer, or maybe a selenium diode. My money would be on the vacuum tube diode though. From what I've seen, selenium diodes were fairly large, and it looks like they've managed to shrink tubes down pretty small by that point, so just going by the small size of the power adapter I'd say it's a tube diode.
So cool, some of tech you feature I’ve never even heard of before 😍
Yep Fran. I agree. Superb for its age. I’m a 69yo Retired electronics technician so I appreciate this high tech recorder. I was in Toronto, Canada at 11 yo (1961) when I first took interest in electronics. Tubes then & Transistor radios by about 1963 if memory serves me correctly. This must have been a very expensive device at that time. Hope you can restore to working order.
Cheers - Trevor in West Australia
Hey Trevor, I got interested in electronics at about the same age, just ten years after you. I joined the Navy and started out as a WLR-1G tech, all synchros, servos and vacuum tubes. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think there was a transistor in the entire system.
What I learned from it was how to troubleshoot. Now, almost 40 years later I'm a Network Engineer and am constantly shocked at how so many college-trained minds cannot look at a system in its totality and narrow down its functional components to isolate a problem.
Wow Fran, what an incredible piece of miniaturisation. Must have been assembled by watchmakers. So great to see such engineering. Looking forward to next installment.
My dad had one of the larger wire recorders when I was 16 I found it that was like 1969. I got the thing to work after repairing it.
The commonest vintage, "portable" wire recorders in the U.S. are those manufactured by Brush, and Webster, also known as Webcor. And by portable, I mean they're usually about the size of a small portable typewriter.
I heard the really big ones were extremely dangerous if the wire broke or came off the machine. It would whip around and slice anyone in the vicinity, so they would stay in a different room while it was operating.
@@chuffpup , Thomas that kind of sounds like an urban legend. But, one wonders if any early computers that used magnetic storage were actually built to use wire as the recording medium rather than magnetic film or tape. If one of those refrigerator-size machines used wire for the recording medium and the wire broke or ran off the spool, in fast forward or rewind mode anyway, I don't think I'd want to be too close to it!
Really amazing Fran!!!
Hi Fran, really great Vid!
If you sometime want to make that thing function, please take care of this "Mylar"-Cap. This is not a Mylar, it's a Paper-Cap, called ERO 100 and these are notorious for badly leaking after all these years. Here in Germany we call these often "Zahnpasta-Kondensatoren" ("Toothpaste-Caps") cause of the whitish-brittle sealing compound.
But there should be some more electronics hidden somewhere. The P55 has 3 Tubes (DF67, DF67, DL67). The original price for the P55 in 1955 was 730DM -or roughly estimated around 3000...3500$ today...
And not to forget another bad capacitor: WIMA tropydur, also known as "Malzbonbon" these were even worse than ER0 100
THAT was fun! Thank Fran
That explains the baggy clothes back in the 50's, to conceal all that - high tech!!
What an amazingly neat workplace!
Whoever designed this machine was truly a genius.
Juan Nunez A Genius is a man with a boss that says money is not an issue then.
Good one Fran!
*When you get it going can you play whats recorded on the wire? I always wonder what is on those*
Good thing you have steady hands Fran.
*[Techmoan wants to know your location]*
@@pearlmax Pretentious? He's one of the best on TH-cam for old audio equipment. Why's he a douche? The joke here is just that I'm sure Techmoan is envious of this recorder.
I can hear him salivating in the "Tube" background. Hope Fran can get that thing working.
pearlmax Jesus chill out lol
@@pearlmax ...Why not plug these tech youtubers yourself then, instead of attacking Techmoan? Just say "hey, not really a fan of Techmoan, so here's other tech channels I recommend", or something like that.
Here, I''ll help you with some tech channels I follow:
Tanner Tech - th-cam.com/channels/R1ARVDHnmTC3sUOkS4mUsg.html
Uncle Doug - th-cam.com/users/Stratosaurus1
D-Lab Electronics - th-cam.com/users/dlab500
8-bit guy - th-cam.com/users/adric22
Big Clive - th-cam.com/users/bigclivedotcom
Retro Radio Farm - th-cam.com/channels/NXdUWfWZHpaDdrOyesz1Cw.html
NearFarMedia - th-cam.com/users/NearFarMedia
@@pearlmax You should probably labor on having a bit of self awareness.
You come of as extremely pretentious. Among other things.
That was definitely one of the cooler items I've seen you showcase in awhile. Very, very cool!!
That spiral progress cylinder is the way I remember the speedometer worked in our 1968 Volvo 144. :D
same with our 1968 122s !
My family had an early 60's Dodge wagon that had what appeared like a red line that moved from left to right as speed increased. It was probably a drum which rotated behind a long horizontal rectangular window.
@scott yes!
birdwing98: I own two ‘55 Buick Super 2Dr Riviera’s that are equipped with a ‘Redliner Speedometer’ that functions like this. I believe first introduced by Buick in ‘54. Just a drum with the spiraled red zone contrasted with an opposing black spiral that rotates horizontally and only visible through a thin slit to give the visual illusion of this ‘red line’ filling up this slit, left to right, as speed increases.
Ok, I am a HUGE fan of old tech. Your detailed analysis and admiration of this old device won me over. I find, repair, and resell old tech like this simply as a way to play with it, admire it, and buy the next one. This thing is AMAZING. Subscribed. Where in the HECK did you find this!?
Absolutely fantastic, the mechanical design, and implementation is superb, that must have cost the equivalent of a small house. Totally exquisite.
Would the translucent feels be original fitment. Some O-ring cord could be wrapped around, and super glued to form a belt.
Thanks for sharing and best regards from the UK.
That was awesome, thanks Fran.
Techmoan and his sentient puppet army has you surrounded... Give it to them or be overwhelmed
I have this too. I bought in 1966 or something in Helsinki. These were already obsolete then. I have a green plastig bag for it. I’ve never tried to run it and never opened it so this was interesting.
22:06 - I see what appears to be another tube, bottom center of the screen, perpendicular to the drive motor.
Yes certainly, well spotted, to the right of the transformer and deeper than the other components. I was so hoping Fran would spot it!
(I thought I was seeing things...)
I think that's a neon bulb. Commonly used with tube devices as a voltage regulator.
@@BobWiersema - Neon bulbs don't have numbers silkscreened (or rotogravered) onto them, much less getter.
Yes, agreed, that is another tube deeper in the circuitry.
Fran is pretty amazing too .
Really amazing little machine! This is the way I like to build things
Amazing how much was crammed into this tube recorder, its unbelievable, I only thought they made things this small when they started transistorising electronics, but this is actually smaller than the earlier transistor cassette players
When you removed that spanner screw from the back - you voided your warranty... DUH-DA-DUH!!
that must have a 100 years warranty
@@redoverdrivetheunstoppable4637 it was "made in West Germany" after all :)
@@jk9554 actually i repaired a W.Germany amplifier with a blown NE555 for the speakers delay, only time in my life i saw a 555 in actual appliance... but yeah, those were really good
As soon she removed the back screw... all the audio recorded was erased...
(Signed: Austin Powel)
Ha!!! ha!!! ha!!!
@@stephanforray4987 I believe you men't
(Signed: Austin Powers)
Ha!!! ha!!! ha!!!
Mini-Me
WOW Fran, I'm impressed with that recorder for sure. Ahead of it's time for late 50's,lol. Thanks for the Vid
At 5:40, " I said be careful, his bowtie is really a camera.... they've all come, to look for America....."
(That's from a Simon and Garfunkel Song, in case somebody didn't catch the reference. It's the song with the line about hitchhiking all the way from Saginaw Highway. Was that one also recorded by Yes?).
yes
Yes. Yes did a great cover, making the song their own.
From one technician to another. Very well presented. Good camera work.
Really curious Fran, are the batteries supposed dry cell, and b leak proof of the time? I used to have a rather fancy transistor radio in the late 60's which had an ever ready 9 volt cell, which had a cardboard shell. Used to extend their life by heating them in the oven. Driving my mother to despair.
I'm loving your 60's analog equipment on your bench. My dad's bench looked like that when I was growing up. Course, he wouldn't teach his little girl about much of it. He did show me how to sort resistors for him. Bad Boys, etc. Love your channel!
That's a beauty. As good as it is, I'm sure Q would provide 007 with a version that somehow eliminated all those bulky batteries.
Danke!
Now THAT is cool ‼️
Reminds me of Mission Impossible.
Oh, please restore it ‼️
📻🙂
It is much too old for Mission Impossible
Amazing piece of history, and amazing video quality!
Congratulations on the new lab!!
Ooooooh Techmoan would be extremely interested in this! You should reach out to him and share!
Hey Fran, I just found your channel tonight through this video and wanted to say Howdy as well as to validate you in your delivery and your communication. You're not only clear spoken but you engage we the audience in a conversational manner that not everybody does on TH-cam, as well as you. I look forward to exploring your channel further and I'll certainly subscribe :-)
A few years later and that could have been Transistor. I have a National (Matsushita comunication industrial co.ltd) four transitor reel to reel tape recorder which my grandfather purchased in the late 50's not quite sure but smewhere around 57 or 58, one of the reels still has a recording that he made of my sisters and myself when we were very young he died in 61, so the recording is before that date and from the sound of the voices the recording was made before 1960 as my eldest sister would have been ten by then and she sounds younger than that. When I I first tried it in the 90's after my grandmother died and I fopund the recorder in one of her drawers all I had to do was remove the old batteries that had leaked and put some fresh AA batteries in , 12 of them and it worked. Since then I have recapped it but dont play it often as i am worried about the tape one day I will have to didgitize the tape before its too late.
Very cool first tear down in the new lab!
it's kinda funny that it uses latex belts and padding along side so much high quality materials when leather might have held up
How would a leather drive belt be self tensioning in that chassis?
Now that is an amazing piece of tech. I’d like to see more of that!!!! I hope you get it working and show us all
I seemed to see a glimpse of another tube at 22:38, bottom-middle of the picture.
i think your rite! it certainly was reflective like a glass tube
Sooo coool very impressive for the time. I had no idea anything that small existed pre transistor.
This is the kind of stuff that I was hoping for when I subbed to this channel :) I would be very interested to see if you could restore it. I would love to hear it play back something :)
Wouldn't it be hilarious if when Fran got it running it played back Thomas Edison saying "Mary had a little lamb...", Just sayin.
This is amazing. Thanks for showing this in great detail!
There is a second tube left from the drivebelt of the motor...
I saw that too.
Wow Fran, what a fantastic little machine.
And how wonderful to see you firing on all cylinders again!
You need Minox B to take incriminating pix to go with the recording.
I actually have a minox model c in my collection... Sadly the films are so expensive to develop that using it is not justified for me as a 17 year old student
Fred Stocking: Crazy how algorithms work (or, ‘not’ work, in my case). I’ve attempted as much research as possible via the Internet off and on over time, in my quest for learning as much as possible in just exactly how these Minifon recorders function and anything else regarding how to properly repair/restore them, as I myself have collected a fairly substantial number of these units and the adjoining accessories (have at least one of every model made; if memory serves me correctly, I own around 12 of them) ‘but’, just today, discovered this channel and video! Hence the comment about algorithms not working as good as folks might think. Roughly back about the time that this channels creator, Fran, posted this video, I was incredibly fortunate to have been able to find and obtained an extremely rare and original, fully illustrated ‘minifon P55 Service-manual’, IN ENGLISH!!!! It’s dated, ‘EDITION P 55/01 NOVEMBRE 1955’. This info is followed by ‘369’ in large, bold font type (November is spelled Novembre in this literature; possibly something to do with whomever translated the content from german?). On a side note: I’ve also been a long time collector/obsessor (lol) for anything and everything ‘MINOX’ ironically! Have at least one great condition example of each model and variation of models of them and, accessories/literature to boot. I believe that particular collection is at about 25 MINOX ‘spy’ cameras now.
woah, that circuitry is still futuristic....awesome video! mind=blown
Alright now Fran, your going to make me late for work!
Same
At about 9:00 in, reminds me of un- snarling an open-face spinning reel when teaching little kids how to cast and fish. When I was older we would sometimes troll in the ocean with springy Wireline, designed to take the fishing lures down deep and have minimal water resistance , but if you snarled that spool of wire (from too much back pressure on the spool with your thumb as you were letting the line out) you might never get it untangled without putting kinks in it and ruining the wire.
My grandfather got me into fishing, starting at age 5. An excellent introduction into the philosophy of patience, useful later in life when attempting to repair small gadgets such as this one.
The bottom of the power block said:
_Achtung! Vor dem Abnehmen der Schutzkappe Netzstrecker ziehen._
===>
_Attention! Before removing the protection cover pull the powerplug._
Is there a hidden German fart joke? ;-)
Thanks for brought this out,nice.
There's always something new to know out there.
I see another tube
YES! You win the prize! I spotted it in editing, thought it would be a good Easter Egg.
@@FranLab :0)
it's a GU81M ...they sneak there all the times
Brings some memories! I demonstrated one as an educational student lecture to my classmates some time around 1957. I recorded a few seconds of the teacher’s voice before it was my time to give my presentation and then played it back at the beginning of my speech. Amazing!
When I was a kid in the early sixties I took apart one of my Grandad's old Medresco hearing aids. It had three tiny valves in it. It had a huge 1.5 V battery and a 22.5 V one in a big pouch which you kept in your pocket connected to the main unit which was clipped to your clothes with another lead going to an earpiece. I made a headphone amplifier with it. As far as I can remember the 22.5V battery lasted quite a while but the 1.5V one had to be replaced every few days. Compare this to my hearing aids that use a tiny zinc-air cell that lasts nearly a week!
I have one of these units. I acquired it as an 11 year old as a gift-repair, in its original advertising box. Fortunately, I fortuitously did not tear it apart. The unit was saved by the fact that I could not get the one rear main screw out. My unit is in like new condition on the exterior. Unfortunately, I have no accessories. Great vid!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing !
I would've messed up the wire with that tangle for sure. Nice demonstration of care and patience.
I was given several working adding machines from the 40-50s when I was a kid. I kinda regret tearing them down for parts, now that I have some appreciation for this stuff. :/
It is very elegant design. It is beautiful, thank you for sharing this
I enjoyed the peek-a-boo into the P-55... thanks Fran.
Loved this video!
What a beautiful machine. This was fascinating. Thanks, Fran!
Thanks for showing us this Fran. Staggering engineering.
Thoroughly enjoyed seeing such an amazing piece of technology enhanced only by having you describe it too us with your voice. So glad to see the lab again and of course you and most happily glad to see things are going better for you now I'd be lost without your videos 😀
Great presentation Fran, and I commend you for taking the risk of dismantling it for your viewers sake... 10/10
Super video. Thank You.
Those caps might still work, test them. I'm using a century old one in my car.
I love how the people of the early 1950s still had so much detail in their work.
As for the drive belt maybe you could cut and sand some old tire tube & lap joint it around the large drum until the vulcanizing sets.
Just came across your video/channel today. Very cool. Nice!
Love these old gadgets and you are very nice presenting them.
Keep it up! I have enjoyed.
That's so cool. You're amazing at what you do. Thank you for posting this one. Hopefully you'll have an updated version of this working someday. Take care.
Thanks Fran. I love your enthusiasm and your sensitivity to this old equipment. I noticed the tube (valve) was from England where I am. Interesting we supplied this highly specialised part to a German manufacturer not long after the war. Show us if you get it working
Thank you for a fascinating presentation. And congratulations on getting Franlab back in business.
I know next to nothing about electronics, but I enjoyed having a look into this little piece of history. Thanks Fran!