Do you think they would still use the same name for this?

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Circa the 60's
 

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Had one of those in an old tube car radio that I had. Made quite the racket, but I guess the cars of the day were pretty noisy as well!! It was an appropriate name, but yes it might raise a few eyebrows today ;)

It was a DC-AC converter correct?

Tony.
 
See this thread for an explanation. There is a link to the theory behing it in one of my posts.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tube...-high-voltage-ac-idea.html?highlight=vibrator

Made quite the racket, but I guess the cars of the day were pretty noisy as well!!

My car was rather quiet. In fact you couldn't hear the motor running at an idle. It was a low compression flathead rated at 97 HP. The vibrator in the radio could be felt on the metal dash, but not heard. Yours was probably old. The vibrating element inside is encased in foam rubber. The foam doesn't last long inside a hot metal box full of tubes that is mounted inside a hot car. Only Cadillacs had AC in the 40's.

I took apart some old (then) military tube equipment, it had a dynamotor in it. I never ran the thing, but I presume it generated dynamotor hum...

The old military dynamotors did make a racket. the DC they generated was pretty clean only needing a 47uF electrolytic or so to be suitable for the plate supply. I got some new production (70's) Carter Dynamotors which were relatively quiet. I found them at the auction when the Pearce Simpson radio distribution center shut down. They imported Japanese CB radios in the 70's and 80's. There was an "engineering lab" in the back, where I found sweep tubes, big coils, and 600 volt Carter dynamotors......I wonder what these guys were up to????

Carter dynamotors were used in a lot of military and civillian police radios dating back to the 40's. They still make a few dynamotors today.

Carter Motor Company
 
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One thing I found funny is that the name is not a very useful description of what it does. Chopper, switcher, ??, I was told many years ago it was a shortening of vibrating relay.

All these names fit to the function, as they were the main part on DC/DC (or DC/AC) power converters many decades ago for military and/or commercial field receivers-transmitters (and home/car radios).
I have opened a few cans. Their usual problem is pitting on the relay’s contact surfaces.
Some have a very complex construction inside and attention to mechanical details/spacing when reassembling is crucial.

George
 
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Back in 1990 my buddy had a Lada from around 1985/86. The voltage regulator off of the alternator was a vibrator (chopper).

Funny...we were working on the car one day because the headlights were really dim and brown (old incandescents). I was hlding a wrench and my hand slipped and I accidentally shorted the regulator (input to output) so the entire output of the alternator went to the headlights (and the battery). I still remember the brief blue flash (like an arc welder) reflected on my friend's forehead. It lasted about 2s.

We had to replace all of the bulbs...and the battery.
 
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