Janneman: "It looks like a time delay fuse for a bomb or a rocket.
Presumably this thing is wound up either electrically before launch or possibly by inertia when fired. It then sets a delay to determine the explosion time."
Good guess.
Well, I don't know about it being a time delay fuse, itself, although it could be. It could be some type of fuse, WITH a time/motion delay just for arming after release or firing. But it also might be "just" an ordinance-arming switch, which would decide if the bomb or missile or torpedo or whatever had reliably been determined to have traveled far-enough from the launcher or delivery vehicle, and had traveled above some minimum speed, so it could be safely armed, essentially giving whatever type of fuse the munition had the "go ahead" to detonate or activate the munition when the fuse's conditions were later met (You wouldn't want the bombs exploding if you were still carrying them and crashed or crash-landed, for instance.). The munition would presumably also have some forward-fluid-motion-powered (air or water media) actuator (like a "passive propeller") that interfaced to the toothed external "gear-like" thingy.
It seems like it could also be some sort of rotary motion or position sensor or gyro, except that the external gear interface doesn't look terribly precise, although with the right type of mating gear, maybe it could be.
But somehow, the enclosure itself and lack of hard mounts don't really look right to me, for a munition-borne device. Could it be some sort of mechanical integrator or accumulator/counter?
Or, if it was munition-borne, or otherwise externally mechanically powered, could it be a magneto-type electrical power generator? Who would want bombs or missiles that depended on batteries that might go dead? (That might be fairly easy to test for, if it still works.)
BTW, you should be able to get the proper connector for it from mouser.com, or alliedelec.com or maybe even digikey.com .
If it has an NSN (National Stock Number; 13 digits, IIRC) on it, or on the paperwork that might have come with it, or has any model number or anything printed on it at all, I can try to look it up in my copy of the Federal Logistics (FEDLOG) database.
If it has an NSN, the first four digits are the Federal Supply Class, and indicate what general type of equipment it is. e.g. 6625 includes most electronic test and measurement equipment, 6130 is Converters, Electrical, Non-Rotating, 1420 is Guided Missile Components, 2950 is Turbosuperchargers, 3770 is Saddlery, Harnesses, and Whips, etc etc etc etc.
You can go to, for example,
http://www.govliquidation.com, and peruse a list of the FSC codes (use the Advanced Search link). You can also search for the whole NSN, there, and, if there are more up for auction somewhere, see if you can get into the NSN link to additional data in the auction lot listing's line-item for that item.
- Tom Gootee
http://www.fullnet.com/~tomg/index.html
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Strange surplus find...time-machine??
