Anemometer or velocimeter

[Moses Yoder]

I would like for someone to tell me a little about this if you know anything about it. It is going into my permanent collection of really cool steampunk stuff.

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[Lee Schierer]

It is for measuring air flow in feet per minute in ducts or open air. You stick it in moving air and hit the button and start a stop watch. I used to use one when I worked for a hospital equipment company. If measuring air flow in a duct or pipe you can determine cfm if you know the area of the duct and get the speed in feet per minute.

[Shawn Pixley]

Moses that is very cool. Great score!

[Mike Cutler]

Very nice!

It is an air flow meter as Lee pointed out. What a beauty though.

Have you seen the movie "Howl's Moving Castle, by Miazaki? Lot's of steam punk animation.

[Michael Weber]

Had some similar in the lab I worked in. Proper term is anemometer

[Art Mann]

I think that is a beautiful old tool.

[Mike Cutler]

Michael is correct, it is an anemometer.

In fact, it is this one, or one close to it.
Taylor Biram's Type Anemometer No. 3132

Sorry
The Instrumentation and Controls Technician in me just had to find out.

[Kent A Bathurst]

i think we need to crash moses' place. been thru white pigeon many times....

had no idea there was anything worthwhile in town...............

[Michael Weber]

Sorry
The Instrumentation and Controls Technician in me just had to find out.
Know what you mean. We had a lot of old instruments around the lab that were beautifully made and highly accurate as many of them were created as calibration standards for back in the day. No one could ever get rid of them as they did not have company asset tag numbers and for the last few decades asset number were required to dispose of anything according to company policy. So the sat unused in my upstairs storage except when I would get them out and marvel at the quality and workmanship. Retired now but suppose they are still there. Hope so anyway.

[Mike Cutler]

Michael

We have a lot of "Antique" instrumentation in the standards lab at work also, Nuclear Power plant. It sits unused because everyone wants to use "digital". Some of it is better than anything that replaced it.
I know of a retired boiler room still full of the original instruments, in panels. All circa the early 60's. I liked going in there just because the analog instruments were just so cool. There is, or was, a brass Taylor 24 hour recorder that had a little brass bicycle pump mounted to the side. You pumped up an internal storage chamber to provide the pneumatics to run the rotary mechanism. Very cool, very, steam punk.

[Michael Weber]

Uber cool. Lots of beautiful stuff out there. Pneumatic process controllers were simply amazing how they provided PID through pressures and linkage.

[Myk Rian]

Hot wire units have replaced them. I have the fan type around here someplace.

[Moses Yoder]

i think we need to crash moses' place. been thru white pigeon many times....

had no idea there was anything worthwhile in town...............

I drive a car.

I spend a lot of time looking and only look for the unusual. My wife says my hobby is spending money.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I drive a car.

I spend a lot of time looking and only look for the unusual. My wife says my hobby is spending money.

Then we can entertain her, and vice versa, while you are out.

Stock the bar.

[Michael Weber]

I had a "planeometer" in storage which was another cool tool. Mechanically calculated area of irregular shapes. Actually a drafting tool and not sure why it was in one of my storage lockers. Someone else liked it enough to steal it. I ran across some others in London on the Portabello road market. Owner had no idea what they were. I was happy to tell him and demoed how the worked.

[Mike Cutler]

Uber cool. Lots of beautiful stuff out there. Pneumatic process controllers were simply amazing how they provided PID through pressures and linkage.


Michael

They still are! There are still thousands of pneumatic PID controllers in use. Problem is there aren't that many people that know how to fix, or tune one anymore. ;)

A DCS system is fine for the control, and building blocks, for control loops, but eventually a valve, or an actuator, has to move somewhere. Pneumatics is still the cheapest, most reliable method to modulate a valve control.