Quote:
Originally Posted by cletrac
It looks like they used quite a variety of boxes.
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Indeed they did, though to a certain extent they used common components.
Cell, Secondary, Portable was always 2 volt, but came in 7, 16 or 75 Amp hour capacity.
Battery, Secondary, Portable 6 volt in 16Ah (always wooden cased with individual cells that could be unbolted and replaced. 40Ah for WS11 and 21, later metal cased and used with the WS B44 in pairs to give 12 volts. 85Ah was the mainstay of vehicle and ground station radios, especially the WS19. 100/125Ah was used with the WS19, WS19HP (British) and WS9 though was a bit underspecced for the WS9 (WS52) due to the starting current. 170 Ah was better for the heavier sets and used in command vehicles.
Battery, Secondary, Portable 10 volt was a very old one (tapped at 4 volts for WW1 wireless set valve heaters) but still used for some wavemeters and also the long range signalling lamp.
Battery, Secondary, Portable 12 volt existed in 22Ah and 75Ah which were used with the WS22 and other sets - the 22Ah was relatively lightweight and could be carried in a special backpack (later used with the WS62) and the 75Ah unit was for static and vehicle use (also with the WS12/R107 stations, etc.) There was a later 12V 14Ah metal cased battery issued with the WS62, though the 22Ah unit was preferred.
Connectors vary. The WW1 batteries had plastic (Ebonite) 2-pin connectors with different pin sizes and spacings so the wrong battery could not be used with the equipment (a 6 volt lead-acid battery would be instantly fatal to 4-volt valve filaments, and serious overvoltage wouldn't do the vibrator power units for the trench sets much good either). Later on they appear to have dropped this in favour of a standard 2-pin "Niphan" connector, regardless of the battery voltage, and marked the case next to the socket with the voltage and polarity. Larger batteries (over 85Ah) used bolted connections and had notches in the case sides to accommodate the connecting cables
Cases: the wooden and the later pressed steel cases will be the same size for a particular voltage/capacity of battery, because they would need to fit the same vehicle racking while they were both in service. Likewise the connectors are the same (though current issue Niphan connectors are shiny (nickel/chrome plated or stainless steel) rather than blackened brass; wiring colours have unfortunately changed to brown/blue instead of red/black.) Some wooden cases (6V 16Ah and 10V 16Ah I have seen) were painted green externally, presumably to "blend in".
Signal battery manufacturers I've seen are:
T.A. = Tudor Accumulators
P&G = Pritchett & Gold
E.P.S = Electric Power Storage
P&G and EPS = they merged!
I've seen Oldham and Exide in steel cased batteries, but they were 1950 vintage.
Hopefully this is useful (or at least vaguely interesting)?
Chris.
p.s: Never EVER use an automotive type discharge tester on a signals-type battery, it will seriously damage (if not destroy) the battery - they're not designed to supply high currents. (Post-WW2 "New Range" (Larkspur) sets intended for vehicle use and float charging, so the modern vehicle batteries do not have that restriction.)