1918 Battery Charger: Tungar Tube ( Mercury Arc Rectifier )

this is a heavy duty battery charger i got off ebay made in 1918. i believe it is 6 amps. it took me a while to figure out how to run it. blew the circuit breakers in my house a few times too. but the charger didnt give a shit about if i shorted it or not so its earned my respect.

[robot]

give that tube some time to warm up

mercury vapor tube can take up to 5 minutes to reach operating temperature

[robertmeyer]

great piece of history! Remember back then the ac line voltage was around 110V it is around 120V today. you will need a step down transformer to get correct charging. The battery in video is AGM 12V type. 13.5V float and 14.4V charge. at 68F.

[themaritimegirl]

Nice find. You are correct in identifying the rectifier as a tungar tube, but tungar tubes and mercury arc rectifier tubes are two different things. Tungar (tungsten-argon) tubes are filled with argon and use a tungsten filament that heats up to ionize the argon (which will be visible, if at all, as a purple discharge). The ionization only happens in one direction, and so rectifies the current.

[RinoaL]

yeah and they made things more straight-forward and harder to break. this charger is like as basic as you can possibly get.

i got it from ebay. bought it from some guy in New York.

[RinoaL]

i was amazed too. i have a fealings its never been used till today. i thought i'd broken it or that the transformer wasnt puting out the right voltage or something because for the day i'd spent messing with it before i filmed this it wouldnt charge anything and the bulb was dim

but then i left it on so i could film it. the bulb dimmed and got really hot then it got brighter and thats when the mercury started condensing in the top. it was heating the mercury from liquid into a gas.

[RinoaL]

yeah soon ima have enough old equipment to make a proper evil lab.

[sixtyfiveford]

Playing with electricity is always exciting.

[MrAlex]

Batteries were called accumulators back then, at least in the UK.

[dillonzhang]

Graphite has to be a cathode, since it's main atom carbo is a building block for organic matter, has a negative chi (a repulsine property), can store and conduct (beyond the means of mere copper anode); the atomic structure is a very fundamental hexagonal base polygon in 3D.

[deepfande]

This is no mecury arc rectifier. It's a Tungar Tube.

[ElPasoTubeAmps]

I picked up two Rectigon bulbs at an estate sale with the anode connection on a ring just above the filament base rather than on the top. Can you tell me the required filament voltage and current? Also the maximum anode voltage and current? I cannot find a data sheet on the tube. It is a mercury vapor rectifier. Thanks for posting.

[DollyDimpley]

Wow! I'm amazed that managed to survive intact. And fair play for working out how to use

[TheIndustrialphreak]

I love how you have a mixture of technology from different errors. particularly the Game boy advance and the vac tube filled with deadly mercury vapor. 

[ElectronHVChannel]

How is a tungar lamp a mercury arc rectifier?

[viktordubowskii]

Why didn't you bring the 12v battery up to full charge 12.6v after you disconnect and let the battery sit static for an hour? You should have 12.6V.

[JimTheZombieHunter]

@10:00, Yep - the age of manly devices long before UL and "do not stuff genitals into toaster oven" stickers :)

[richcampoverde]

A tungar lamp is not a Mercury arc rectifier

[Kryptocode]

That battery charger is sure vintage. Check E-Bay and old surplus shops for tubes and other bits for that old charger.

[RinoaL]

well anyway, i think that only happens when you first use the tube, because after that the mercury is more evenly disperced in the bulb as it cools.

[eblais]

I have a Tungar charger ive been running for ever. I think its from WW1, same as yours. Could i put a 15 amp fuse in this or would it damage components before the fuse blows? Id like to put a 15 amp resetable breaker fuse.. cant find any smaller ones