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spsffan

On 4/9/2012 7:19 AM, wrote:
On Apr 9, 12:50 am, wrote:

No. 6 batteries

It rather makes sense, as I seem to recall them mostly in science labs
and science experiment kits of the kind marketed to adolescent boys. I
seem to recall that my brother used one with a practice telegraph key,
which had a flashlight bulb to give feedback in learning Morse Code.
Stuff like that!

The "How& Why Wonder Book on Electricity" had projects for kids using
a No. 6 dry cell. They taught about series and parallel wiring.

I remember wrapping wire around a big nail to make an eloctromagnet,
and turning it off and on to pick up papercliops. But the nail
retained some of its magnetism.

I _think_ a battery cost about $1 back then and it would last
forever. The local store had all the knife switches, light sockets,
1.5V screw maps that I could want for my experiments. Connecting a 6V
lantern battery to a 1.5V burned it out in a flash.

Well, all that seems to jar memories! Yes, we did the electromagnet
trick and a few others.

Returning to rail, many places were lit by five bulbs in series off
the 600V traction power. If a bulb burned out they all did. But I
think some fancy trains had special circuits to bypass a dead bulb.

Oh, shades of tube radios with tubes of various voltages, in series,
adding up to approximately 120 volts. Most small table radios from the
1940s to the end of tubes used this format.

Regards,

DAve