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Need H&W TA-3 Autocolimator Manual

daryl bane

Titanium
Joined
Mar 12, 2002
Location
East Texas
I am looking for a copy of a manual for a TA-3 or TA-4 Hilger and Watts Autocollimator. It is the one with the photoelectric eye in the eypiece along with a separate amplifier box. I am missing the power cord and am leery of rigging up a 110v feed to the amplifier box chassis plug without documentation.
 
Hi Daryl,

Power cords are pretty standard things, as required for UL approval of the equipment.

Is this an American-made device? If so it should have a three-pin cord (at the equipment end) with either flat or round pins, female on the cord.

Which do you have?

With both styles the middle pin on the equipment end is chassis ground, which can be confirmed with an ohmmeter or continuity tester.

- Leigh
 
Daryl

All the Hilger & Watts optical equipment I had dealings with used an external transformer / power supply unit. Memory says four standard units, two curvy top ones, usually for illumination only duties, and two bigger squarer units. But it was a fair while ago and I may be getting things muddled. I think we had one of the photo-electric jobbies about the place but I never used it. The one in my lab was the ordinary one and I hardly used that. Power supplies used to go walkies on a regular basis!

Clive
 
Thanks for the replies. But this is a English made unit, probably from the 60's. The power plug is a type I am not familiar with, but maybe common on obsolete British made electronic devices.:rolleyes5: This female plug is wired red, black and green, which indicates maybe a AC circuit? I feel that the separate amplifier box utilizes a power transformer, to supply the photoelectric cell as well as the main illumination bulb, but I would like to make sure. I had a TA-1 that was missing the bulb illumination transformer, but it was a easy job to make one up.
 
Here is a pic of the unit and the back. The plug in question is the P104 socket. Thanks
MyPlace029.jpg

MyPlace027.jpg
 
Looks like one of the Bulgin plugs that were common a few years back. Red, black and green would imply live, neutral and earth/ground, with the "mains" indicator on the front switch suggesting 240V.

If it might have been used in the US in its past, it might be worth checking any transformers to to see what markings are on them. You may be able to work it out by testing with 110V and checking part of the circuit (lamp, tube or photocell filament etc) to see if it's about the right voltage or half voltage.
 
Thanks Mark. I am doing kind of a shotgun approach to acquiring knowledge of this unit. I was going to gingerly apply 110 volts and see what happens. At least if it is 240V , 110V won't blow it up. I hope.
 
Well that box doesn't look at all familiar.

As Mark says socket P104 is a standard low power UK 240 V mains rated Bulgin unit. Difficult to judge the size probably 2 amp rated with solder terminations in the plug but maybe 4 amp rated with screw terminations inside. Number I've fitted over the years its surprising I've forgotten the details! Prolly still got some somewhere! Normally Hilger & Watts were very good with multi-voltage transformer taps having clear white on brown writing and effective plugs to change input voltages. Time to look inside I think.

Whatever you do don't hurt S102 and S103, S105. Those sizes went unobtainium around 30 years ago.

Clive
 
Thanks Clive. Right you are, the transformer inside does have multi taps and looks like it is setup for 100-110V. It was supplied by Engis, here in the US and you would think they would have it setup for US voltage. The Bulgin connector PX0646 was easily sourced by Mouser Elec. and is on its way to me. Luckily, I have the S102 plug/cable that supplies power to the photoelectric cell and bulb. The other 2 connections, S103,S105, not a clue.
 
Terminals S103 and S105 let you run a second, remote, meter on long cables. Presumably so you can see a readout when making adjustments at the other end although I don't know this would work with an auto collimator.

Clive
 
Here is a pic of the board. I think it is self-explanatory. It seems to be wired for 115V which would work in the U.S., if I'm looking at it right. Also included is a pic of the telescope, showing the beautiful case, that harkens back to another era. The Brits certainly do good work.;)
MyPlace032.jpg

MyPlace034.jpg
 
Turquoise Painton wire wound resistors. Now that really takes me back!

Standard H&W autocollimator box I see. As usual the not very comfortable when new leather handle has gone to its long term rest state of seriously uncomfortable / cut your fingers off mode!

Reminds me that when I accepted the redundancy-consultancy-support the kit I built deal I took a ton of kit out of the lab but left behind "my" Dekkor and H & W autocollimator. Went back a few months later to set some specialist kit up and found they'd been binned. Why "Not ISO9000". Should have followed my instincts and lifted them too.

Clive
 
You'd think with the care of building the box, that they would've fitted up a better handle.:rolleyes5: I have two of these and the handles are in the same sorry state.
 
Hello Daryl,
hope you don't mind me stepping into this post/conversation. I recently purchased an H&W autocollimator and as far as I can tell it is the same model than yours. It is in good (and working conditions), but I do not have the power unit. I only found a picture from 1959 with the title 'Autocollimator with remote electronic indicator_1959' showing the autocollimator and your supply unit. It would be great to figure out what type of voltage (AC/DC) and level the photooptic cell needs and what it returns to drive the meter on the supply unit. With this information it should be easy to build something new and make it work. Unfortunately I can't see the posted pictures clearly. Would you mind to share them? My autocollimator has no model or serial number on it, but it seems to be a TA-3 or TA-4. I can soon offer a copy of the original manual from 1960, which I found on eBay and would like to convert to PDF. Hope you still have your unit and I could help with the manual, since this post is from 2002. Would very much appreciate to get in contact.
Best,
Peter
 
Ha, this is an old thread. It had been awhile since I fired it up.....I think ? I wil pull it out and see where everythings at and post it here. I thought I had found a manual on line but that might be fantasy, I will check when I get home. The link that the russian person posted above is all in russian and I never could figure it out as to what to download.
 
Hello Daryl,
hope you don't mind me stepping into this post/conversation. I recently purchased an H&W autocollimator and as far as I can tell it is the same model than yours. It is in good (and working conditions), but I do not have the power unit. I only found a picture from 1959 with the title 'Autocollimator with remote electronic indicator_1959' showing the autocollimator and your supply unit. It would be great to figure out what type of voltage (AC/DC) and level the photooptic cell needs and what it returns to drive the meter on the supply unit. With this information it should be easy to build something new and make it work. Unfortunately I can't see the posted pictures clearly. Would you mind to share them? My autocollimator has no model or serial number on it, but it seems to be a TA-3 or TA-4. I can soon offer a copy of the original manual from 1960, which I found on eBay and would like to convert to PDF. Hope you still have your unit and I could help with the manual, since this post is from 2002. Would very much appreciate to get in contact.
Best,
Peter

Hi Peter,
There is a circuit for the FA-70 power supply and amplifier in K.J.Hume's book 'Metrology with Autocollimators', pub. Hilger & Watts 1965.
You will see that the vibrator is driven by 6.3 Vac 50/60 Hz. The photodetector appears to be fed with d.c. from the lower end of the voltage divider labelled with marker 91.
I do not have a copy of the TA-3 manual. If you have a pdf available, I'd be very grateful!
Regards,Rod.
FA-70-3 Circuit_Diagram.jpg
 
Autocollimator manual

Hi Peter,
There is a circuit for the FA-70 power supply and amplifier in K.J.Hume's book 'Metrology with Autocollimators', pub. Hilger & Watts 1965.
You will see that the vibrator is driven by 6.3 Vac 50/60 Hz. The photodetector appears to be fed with d.c. from the lower end of the voltage divider labelled with marker 91.
I do not have a copy of the TA-3 manual. If you have a pdf available, I'd be very grateful!
Regards,Rod.
View attachment 269641

Hi Rod, Does the book you referenced have the component values for the circuit, I have tried to track down a copy of the book but can't find it.

Thanks
Nick
 








 
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