1893 General Electric Luminous Radiator

[58limited]

This is my newest acquisition. I found this on ebay and was intrigued, so I bought it. I know the light bulb was perfected about 1878/9 for practical use, but I had no idea that GE tried to market them for use as a space heater as early as 1893. The bulbs are about 11" long. Anyone ever run across one of these? If so, I'd like to find out more info about them.

 

[58limited]

I have another for parts. Out of the six bulbs, three test OK with an ohm meter. The parts unit has a piece broken off of the top front edge. Here is the picture montage of it from the ebay auction:

 

[mattl]

Wow! Very unique. Are you going to attempt to power it up at some point? I might use a variable output transformer and bring it up to full power slowly. I wonder how much heat this would put out...

 

[58limited]

Not sure if I want to plug it in - you never know when old bulbs like these will burn out and I don't want to burn one out the first time it is plugged in. This heater was designed for 100 volts so I'm not sure if current voltage will be too much and I don't have any equipment to drop the voltage. I will rewire and clean it, but it will be for display only.

 

[maytagbear]

Well, anyway

it is a great looking, and very interesting thing! Fascinating to see the evolution of electricity and devices.

Thank you for posting it.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[volvoguy87]

I know who to ask.

Thanks to resources at the Antique Fan Collectors' Association!

Ask Mr. Darryl Hudson at the link below. He is a machinist who knows his way around fans like Gordon knows WP/KM Belt Drive washers. Darryl also restores heaters like yours. He sells lots of fan parts, including wool oil wick material.

Nice find,
Dave

http://www.hudsonscustommachining.com/

 

[58limited]

Dave,

Thanks for the link, there is a wealth of info on that site. I'll e-mail Darryl about the heater - I need a plug end and new cloth wire for this. According to his site, he has these in stock.

 

[supersuds]

Perhaps a dumb question, but is that 100 volts AC or DC? Could have been either back then, as I understand it.

 

[58limited]

Not a dumb question, and I don't know. I was wondering why it was made to be 100 volts instead of 110/115V like now, but thought that the voltage standard might have been changed at a later date. I forgot about DC being in use back then.

 

[spiceman1957]

Fascinating,

Even though it may have been practical, I wonder how many fires this thing caused, not to say in the least children getting burned by the bulbs.
John

 

[rp2813]

Wouldn't this be the portable electric version of the same type of built-in and vented unit in natural gas? It seems to me that it would be just as easy for a kid to get burned on the gas type as on one of the luminous heating bulbs. It's amazing that any bulbs survived considering there's no grate to protect them or the user.

One concern would be any properties of the bulbs that could impact health. Wasn't exposure to certain types of sun/heat lamps declared unsafe sometime within the last 20 or 30 years?

 

[toggleswitch]

It's AC/DC *COUGH*; should made no difference.

Kids at tat time knew that (and expected) what got hot was fire; and stay the hell away!

Generating stations orignally pumped out 110v to 120v so that the consumer ultimately was intended to get 100v.

Love that Brits first called electric heaters an electric fire!

Still not so different than today's heat-lamps that keep food warm in restaurants. My parents had such a heat-lamp in their basement for heat, only theirs glowed red so that guests knew it was for heat. If you'll pardon the expression, I could never warm-up to that thing!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_distribution

 

[cadman]

If you do obtain a new cloth cord make sure it'll handle the amperage. A lot of the reproductions available are for low current devices like old fans and radios. Another option is to use a cord from a 40's waffle iron of skillet (change the end of course) which would've been cloth, handled the current draw and look semi-authentic while being pretty easy to find.

I find it interesting that it's a _luminous_ radiator, which to me, sounds like a source of light rather than heat!

-Cory

 

[tolivac]

Pretty neat-reminds me of todays quartz tube InfraRed heaters.In the days a heater such as this was used-kids would be told to stay away by the parents-if the kid insisted on touching one of the hot bulb elements-he wouldn't do it again.Those would get hot enough to take off skin!The device should run from AC or DC power.But to be safe use it for "looks" only.Bet the bulb heat elements are VERY hard to find.

 

[mr_sparkle]

Toggles!!!!!!!

Goodness Toggles, I was about to reply to the person that commented upon us Brits, and did not realiase it was you until I logged in! How are you??

Oh and my point was that we STILL call electric fires , well... electric fires! LOL

Always have done, And LPG too, we call those gas fires.

I do call my paraffin heater a paraffin heater tho my parents call it a paraffin stove!

 

[duet83]

And a flashlight is called a Torch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashlight

 

[sarahperdue]

Saftey in the Modern World

First, gotta say that radiator is breath-taking, lovely.

Now on to my intended topic. It seems like there are so many safety things we just "knew" growing up that kids today have no clue about--don't put fingers in an Emerson fan, it will chop them off... If you touch the space heater it will burn you...

I have a child's sized functional wood burning stove that belonged to my grandmother. My grandfather built me a playhouse, and I built fires in it without supervision from before I can remember. Fans, heat, heat, guns, electricity, fire were things I and all the kids I knew were taught about from such an early age that we don't remember being taught.

Now ceiling fans have warning labels cautioning parents not to stick their child's head in them. I have a Mr. Coffee glass lined thermal pitcher that is labeled "do not put ice or hands inside pitcher." A woman wins a law suit because she's been burned by hot coffee that is supposed to be hot. It's insane, but it is the real world we live in.

Somehow my husband refuses to accept this brave new world. Our oldest son is eight, and one of the biggest battles we had when he was born was over my insistence that the guns be kept in a locked cabinet. "But, daddy kept his hunting rifle propped in the corner of the dining room..." So did my grandaddy, but times have changed. He was dumbfounded when our kindergartener got in trouble for snitching dad's pocket knife and bringing it to school. The principal saw no difference between the small, funcional stockman's knife and a weapon. I got it. Bruce is still shaking his head. Thank God our kids are in parochial school. Otherwise, our son would have been expelled in kindergarten under zero tolerance public school rules.

 

[turquoisedude]

David, if you need any NOS cloth covered hookup wire, I had the good luck to find a 75-foot reel of the stuff when the local hardware store in Ogden changed hands and they cleared out their 'dead stock'. Send me an email if I can help!!

 

[washernoob]

Me love

I love my old appliances that are dangerous.

Oh all the non grounded, cloth covered corded, 3-4 inch fan cage gaped, high speed spinny stuff.

Real stuff!

Oh some of the lawsuits today are ridiculous. Who is stupid enough to stick their hand in a blender????? Or stick your finger in the light socket.

Ugh. Common sense people!

I love the old fans. You know with the huge S design wire cages, usually open backs on the cages. My mom once told me not to use it because it was "so dangerous"

I promptly told her, who is stupid enough to stick their hand into the cage whilst the blade is spinning?

 

[washernoob]

Cloth wire

Sundail-wire sells vintage style of cloth cord.

http://www.sundialwire.com/

I plan to buy some cloth cord for my 1925 Dayton fan, and my 1919 hoover 102.

Cant decide which style to get for my dayton. Twisted, straight, black, green... decisions decisions!

 

[mr_sparkle]

duet83 - what you call a flash light is indeed a torch over here.

I love our language differences, I never knew you called a torch a flash light! I'd be in trouble if I needed to buy one in the US!

Other I can think of are:

Tap = Faucet
Live Wire = Hot
Paraffin = Kerosene
Meths = Mineralised Sprit (I think)
Cooker = Range / Stove
Work Top = Counter Top (Kitchen)

I cannot think of any more!

Oh and for all of us Brits, find attached a link to braided flex in the UK, only it can only handle up to 500w appliances I think.

I LOVE old electrical appliances, and have plugged in a few things that may I should not have done.

On the heater theme, I was visiting one of our statley homes recently and saw an amazing electric fire made by HMV! It was 3000 watts, so would have been as effective as any heater you can buy in the UK today.

http://www.bygonelighting.co.uk/3-c...rent-colours-3amp-sold-by-the-metre-165-p.asp

 

[mr_sparkle]

Fire Link

Here is the electric fire I saw, this one is on display at the London Science Museum.

 

[58limited]

Here's a few more British to American English translations that I've run across:

Bonnet = car hood

Boot = car trunk

Lorry = truck

Petrol = gas

Aerial = antenna

Loo = bathroom

As far as safety of older appliances, back then people seemed to have more common sense and raised their children using it. When I was young, I was told not to touch certain things because they could hurt me. If, after being warned, I still tried to touch something; I was either spanked or they let me and when I hurt myself my parent would laugh and say "I told you so, I bet you won't do that again!" (They only let me do that for relatively non dangerous stuff, and after the first time that happened, I obeyed from then on).

 

[lordkenmore]

Overall, I think it's probably best and easiest to have this heater on display, only, as planned.

I'd be concerned running that gadget on modern power. If nothing else, the current 120V could shorten the life of the bulbs. I have heard of antique radio restorers who make changes (like installing a tube with higher voltage drop in a radio that has tubes wired in series) just because modern line voltages (at least in parts of the US) are higher than they once were.

If actually used, DC power MIGHT also be a better choice. It's said a light bulb will last longer with DC. (With AC, the theory is that the bulb is constantly cycling off and on.)

Brandon--while thinking of radios, I might as well mention that if you like "dangerous" appliances, you might like an old 40s/50s AC/DC table radio if you don't already have one. Plugged in one way, the chassis is live, and the back covers used back then really weren't enough to keep prying fingers out.

 

[appliguy]

Excuse me John but......

do you mind explaining to me why a vintage radio is a "dangerous appliance"? I have a bunch of them some even restored and working and I just don't get how they are dangerous...unless you mean that they are dangerous if you do not know what you are doing when you try to fix one but then again any appliance is dangerous if you try to fix them when you do not know how to do so. I am, by the way, to dumb to fix them myself, BUT I am smart enough to have them fixed by a qualified person.....PAT COFFEY

 

[sudsmaster]

Heat Output

Well, the label says 7.5 Amps at 100 Volts, so for a purely resistive load (which those bulbs no doubt are), the heater should be putting out about 750 watts of heat. About 1/2 of what a modern electric space heater might put out.

 

[washernoob]

hammond

I used to have a 1947ish Hammond CV with a DR20 tone cabinet.

It was a beautiful organ. Oh boy I think it was all original too.

My dad would hate it when I fired her up. He thought I was going to blow something up. He said it was old and dangerous.

I beg to differ!

I loved that organ! It sang beautifully. The b3 era organs seemed to punchy and beefy. While this CV is more soft and sutle, but aint quiet!

That DR20 tone cabinet was a good 5.5 feet tall and packed a punch! But that soft friendly kind of punch

____
Dont have any old radios. I used to have a Franz metronome. It was probably from like the 40s. It was a black box, with a little light on the top.

That thing did actually short circuit and burned the wall plug! :S

 

[lordkenmore]

Dangerous vintage radios

Pat--I was talking about AC/DC radios above. Many of these had a huge safety problem. Thankfully, it's easily dealt with.

AC/DC radios were designed to have no AC transformer. This was a cost cutting move. AC/DC radios were usually the cheaper radios on the market. They were very common--almost every radio I've seen from the 40s or 50s (except console) is AC/DC.

Due to the overall AC/DC radio design, the metal chassis (holding the electronics) is never very well isolated from the power cord. In some cases, one side of the power cord is even directly attached to the chassis. Thus, the chassis on one of these radios CAN be live. Someone touching the chassis could get a nasty shock. Or even be electrocuted. This applies ANY time the radio is plugged in, whether or not it's on.

Touching the chassis accidentally was too easy in the early days of AC/DC radios. Back covers had huge openings through which even an adult hand could slip in. The chassis was held in place by screws underneath the radio. These radios are the ones I'd consider potentially dangerous.

Later on, safety standards apparently improved. These improved radios had a chassis fully enclosed by the cabinet, with no exposed chassis screws, and vent holes that were too small for even the smallest finger to slip in.

In order to fix the live chassis problem, particularly on the older AC/DC radios, some experts suggest a couple of changes:
-Installing a polarized plug, which, when plugged into a properly polarized outlet, will ensure that chassis side is connected to the neutral side of the power grid. (Although, one needs to be sure the wall outlet is properly wired!)
-If necessary, rewiring the power switch so it's on the live side of the power cord

Radios using an AC transformer should not have any live chassis issue, since the transformer should fully isolate the radio from line voltage.

The worst AC/DC radios were probably some of the earliest. I've never seen one, but I've heard in the early days some used a special power cord that included a resistive wire to help with the voltage drop. These cords ran hot, and could even start fires. I heard they were called by some "curtain burners."

Link to article about AC/DC radios, which more fully describes the issue. Plus instructions on how to rewire an AC/DC radio (for those competent to take the task on):

http://www.antiqueradio.org/safety.htm

 

[58limited]

Rick

You are correct about the 750 amps put out by the heater. The base of some of the bulbs have 250 amps written on them by hand (actually 250 C which I guess was meant to mean "current"). The number and letter strokes look like they were made by a fountain pen.

The base of the bulbs have the patent date stamped on them, don't know why the amp rating was hand written unless the base was used for multiple bulb styles so the amp info was left off or hand written - unknown if written by the manufacturer or at a later date.

 

[appliguy]

LordKenmore thanks for the additional info

as I said I am to dumb (and chicken when it comes to dealing with electricity) to fix my radios myself so I of course would not have that knowledge...I appreciate your sharing it with me. I always like to learn something new that pertains to something I am interested in.....PAT COFFEY