@@OliverFlinn lol wtf do you know about anything! life isnt a phone! i know the only thing inside your head is about getting the new phone! lol youre pathetic!
@@remek_ember His father was killed by a broken wood fan when the greedy plant manager just denied funding for the metal fans only a day earlier. It rained on his walk home after hearing the news only to have his landlord evict him for unpaid bills, to be replaced by the local wooden fan salesman.
Also dead wrong about wood being a poor engineering material and being cheaper. Industry switched to metal and plastic for most applications because it is FAR cheaper to mass manufacture than wood, which does not *need* to be hand made, but hand-made is preferable because a craftsman can compensate for wood having non-homogenious grain structure that can lead to a high reject rate in "standardised" mass-production. Metal and plastic are just way easier to work with, and therefore cost less in terms of labour. It is true that wood is more sensitive to environment, but that is very context dependant. Under "perfect" conditions almost every compenent can last forever. (On a final note: "Solid wood" refers in this context to the wood and construction being sturdy, dense, and well made. It's not even an obscure definition. Even if "hollow?" was intended as a joke, it just sounded stupid)
I love how modern solutions are so simple… like solid state vs tubes, fuel injection vs carburation, turbine engines vs reciprocating engines, internal combustion vs external combustion, etc etc.. but engineers had to figure the difficult way that was technologically feasible first before things like materials and processes and tolerances allowed simpler things to be developed.
Nothing manufactured today is "simple". In fact, every electrical and electronic apparatus manufatured today is far, far more complex, and far, more likely to fail. None of these modern contrivances are built to endure; and there are far more components in them to fail. The achille's heel of semiconductors is that they *semi-conduct*, which means much heat is generated at their operating junctions (which are very small), and that heat will ultimately cause them to fail. The only thing that has really been gained with all this is *miniaturization*. But, in fact, these things are so tiny now that, except in rare circumstances, they are not even designed to be repaired... they are simply designed to be discarded... they are DESIGNED to fail. And, also, regrettably, there are very few people left that can even do repairs on these things, and with every passing day, their numbers decline yet further. Which means, essentially, that we have become slaves to these devices, and to those whom produce them.
the mercury vapor bulbs are about the coolest version of real science being as wild as science fiction. but personally i find all those well maintained, now-antiquated switches and meters to be the most beautiful part of this display.
My late grandfather was an engineer and was involved as a consultant in the construction of our local museum of transport and technology in Auckland, NZ. He explained to me that when the trolley buses were phased out in Auckland in the 70' - 80's the mercury arc rectifiers were relocated to a building at the museum to supply DC to the trams that run from the museum to the Auckland zoo and on to the aircraft museum down the road. Visitors to the museum are able to stand and watch them operating.
When I was a boy there was a man in Bamber Bridge (nr. Preston, Lancs) who manufactured car batteries in a big shed by the railway line. To charge his batteries he had one of these rectifying the mains, and then simply put about 15-20 batteries in series on the output. I remember being fascinated by that shimmering dot of blinding light.
Restored? 🤔 That Tech My Friend Had Always Been There, The Whole Building Is Connected To It, It Isnt Just For "Display" - He Tells Us This When He Turns Them On And Switches The Load Over 🧐. Mercury Arc Rectifiers Were Around LONG Before 1901 👈🏼 & Were NOT Invented By Whom They Claim 🤣. Much Love, 💚
A work colleague told me he was at a power station which used these devices. I guess possibly to provide excitation for an alternator. One day he had to take a party of school children around the station, all of whom he thought were pretty disinterested. He showed them the steam driven alternator and said this is where we make the electricity and then pointed to the rectifier and said this is where we bottle it. The next day he was taken to task by the station manager...clearly their teacher wasn't happy.
The days before 9-11 when the public could visit power stations. I was heading to lunch through the turbine hall once, when one of the old hands shouted out, slightly too loudly 'you can see up the skirts of the holiday-camp visitors through the open mesh floors'. Lol Almost walked into some scafolding.
@@BitTwisted1 Is it totally illegal for the public to visit power stations? Also, is it routine for staff to use the turbine hall as a foot traffic throughfare? There was a case where a superheated steam main near a workers' breakroom ruptured and killed everybody inside.
@@gregorymalchuk272 I'm not sure about the restrictions on visiting today, but I know years ago I visited the Hoover Dam and was able to walk through the dam and the turbine hall there. It's not only steam-based plants that have turbine halls, though likely the large majority are some sort of combustion-based generators.
@@heyallenify In 2006 vehicles still crossed the river on the top of the dam...there was a bridge being constructed nearby at the time. Now, traffic is on the bridge, don't know about tours...but that was the way you got to vegas from arizona, litterally on and over the dam.
@@somethingsomeonesaid6455 I only went to the dam as a young teen, and that was around 90... It's been a few years for me, so things have definitely changed!
@@JamieSteam used to take my children there in the '70's ,then my grandchildren . used to tell them it was an alien from space lol. Still running today as far as I know, was for the museum trams.
@@JamieSteam Thanks for the reminder - I saw the one(s)? at MOTAT as a kid but didn't understand what they were. I must go and take another look! So much fun compared to silicon... A huge pool of mercury AND the arc changes brightness depending on current draw. What's not to love? :D
@@Agent24Electronics yes if they had money it would make an awesome display as a crazy sparking glowing thing, in a clear case in the middle of the room. Unfortunately MOTAT has been hard up for cash the past 40 years or so! I remember visiting in the early 80s, and I swear some of the displays haven't been dusted since then.
You would think it was infancy but from HIStory we actually see entire cities filled with trams and millions of electric lights in the various " worlds fairs" in the mid to late 1800s. I was always taught that the 1800s were filled with oil lanterns and dust when in reality massive construction projects happened worldwide with bustling electric systems seemingly popping up overnight. If anything our electric vehicles are way behind what was being done back then. Almost like entropy is real.
These were really common on power stations, generating DC for the instrumentation battery backed up DC supply buses. The were a reliable and efficient way of generating large amounts of DC before silicon rectifiers appeared. I worked at Dungeness Magnox power station in the early 2000s. (On a completely separate project but engineers talk). I believe there were a suite of large mercury arc rectifiers supplying power to the instrumentation buses. Apareltly they occasionally blew out, which made for an interesting time I'm sure, (Let them cool down,replace fuses, then restart them and they were good for another few years). The station was scheduled for shut down in 2006 and Magnox were somewhat reluctant to spend millions replacing them with a new silicone rectifier system with so little time left. Obviously there were multiple redundant parallel systems but there were no spares available. Then some identical spare units turned up from the London underground which had never actually been turned on. I'm not sure if they needed to be fitted before the station was decommissioned, that part would have been turned off sometime after the fuel was removed, so probably 2012 ish. The trials and tribulations of keeping 50 year old equipment running :¬)
Just had a look and the underground uses a strange DC system of +430V on 1 power rail and -210V on the other. So back in the day they'd have had a large number of these Octo(Hexa)puses
Yes quite large ones existed for example on the DC links that often shared power between countries. The large ones however were not glass like in this video. The big ones were constructed in steel and had vacuum pumps on them to keep them pulled down. The escaping mercury vapours caused some contamination and an occupational health hazard. The attractive glassware we are shown here could often be seen in elevator machine rooms at the top of blocks of flats and offices as they all ran brushed DC motors and controls. I saw an antiquated example of this in Kiev recently in some soviet era flats. If you see a lift with a chair in it then beware. If it has a chair with a pot on the floor under it then definately dont use it.
The factory I work in had DC control voltage to control the AC equipment, as well as some rather large motors which also ran both AC and DC. We used to have a motor of several hundred hp connected to two generators, one on each side, so one generated +125 VDC and the other -125 VDC, so the total generated was 250 VDC. All that is gone now, replaced by solid state rectifiers.
One of my local museums has a set of these supplying power to a heritage street tram system. As the trams accelerate and decelerate, the arc changes. Very cool to see working!
I just saw a video of some kids exploring an old Soviet bunker. Everything was falling apart and rusted to hell, but there was still power. They turned on the mercury arc rectifier and the damn thing was working like it was brand new. Impressive piece of machinery.
This equipment was mentioned in a novel I’m reading. I’d never heard of it before, so it was quite cool to see a video of the actual equipment in use. Thanks for posting.
@@faber_3285 I came here from a novel called “Strange Practice” by Vivian Shaw. I’m assuming it’s the same novel. Idk how many books could possible be talking about mercury arc rectifiers
I actually just saw Photonicinduction's new vid the other day powering up a mercy arc rectifier. I had never seen one in action before, though I'd seen several on display before throughout my adult life. Truly fascinating to behold. Works of art, now. These are treasure now. For a time nixie tubes were also in this vintage category until that Czech fellow began producing them again. To be honest, I do think we should interest future generations whatever way we can for fields like these.
I was an apprentice electrician in a steel works in the mid 70s. The older end of the works employed these MARs. I could never walk past them without being intrigued by their operation and captivated by their beauty. Thank you for posting this video.
I worked there for a time in the sixties, and was fascinated by these rectifiers, and also by the huge 240 MVA & 400 MVA transformers built there - and the testing of them. Shipping them out via Wynn's and Pickfords was fun, too.
I remember seeing one of those mercury arc bulbs and had always wondered, what that little electrode bouncing around was doing. Thanks to bring back this technology view.
As a 16 year old industrial plant fitter ( 43 year ago ) , one of my first tasks was to go into the ''rectifier room '' and sweep the black dust of the floor , i was handed a dustpan and brush to do it , a few hours later finished said task but felt strange , kinda burning skin and tight chest . i now know all about U.V. and ozone , safety was truly a joke back yonder . Thanks for posting .
That was 1980s.... as a young bloke you may not have known but the workplace bloody did and that is a very poor show. And a shitty thing to do to an Aprentice ... for shame ... About then I was playing with EHT stuff on CRTs and I was also working in a Hospital. We would never have tolerated that .
@@markawbolton You'd be surprised how much of that still goes on today. People are just more secretive and sneaky about it. "Well, I was treat like shit as an apprentice, and it never did me any harm. Now I'm going to treat you like shit so you know how it feels too."
@@Dave5400 I once worked with a bloke who went through that. He would never express an opinion about anything. He would always appear busy. If any thing remotly problematic showed up on the jobs list he would vanish. His conversations consisted of "Yes". He was all appearances and no skill and didnt care. I often wonder if he could have amounted to anything if he had a REAL Apprenticeship.
I wondered why this guy never mentioned UV produced by these "lamps", but at any rate, should the glass envelope crack there wouldn't be much rejoicing in more than few homes that night...
I saw some in operation when I was a kid on the train line that transported coal from Yallourne Open Cut to the Briquette Factory I Morwell (Victoria, Australia). They were dotted along the track in the power houses to run the DC overhead line for the trains and as the train approached they got brighter then went back to a dull base glow like these as the train got further up the line. We were being shown by a friend of Dads who worked on them - he called them ‘The Purple Octopus’. I worked there when I left School and they had only just replaced them when I started as an Electrician. The units were still in situ but not connected - that was in 1987 so the were in service for quite some time. 👍
Thank you for explaining the basics of mercury rectifiers. I've seen and heard of them before as obscure relics from the past and never really understood the principles of operation. Now I still do not understand it to my satisfaction but I understand a great deal more than I did before watching this video.
Shiey recently went into an old WWII bunker that had one of these in it. And it still powered right up. Mad stuff, especially now that I understand how it works.
Soo cool people figured these things out back in the day! Looks like it's WAY ahead of it's time! Nowadays, people are more concerned with which color to dye their hair, or which soy latte is the best.
Very interesting. I once visited the power station supplying the trolleybus system in Tampere, Finland. One could clearly see the difference, when a trolleybus accelerated.
Excellent presentation. I visited Kempton in November 2017, but the engine wasn't running and we didn't see these rectifiers. But there was a very kind gentleman who gave us a lovely tour of the triple expansion engines and the turbines in the basement. He also told us an interesting story about how a stuck water valve caked up with scale was unstuck. I have to visit again sometime, when the engine will be powered. Thank you for sharing! Matthew
This is unbelievable to see in action. I know it's not an efficient system compared to modern converters, but I am beyond glad to see the museum rescued and preserved such a wonderful piece of engineering history
As a child I remember going to central London from Kent. There are some big metal doors just outside Embankment tube station. I was fascinated by the glow through the crack from the mercury arc rectified that powered the tube line traction current. I wonder how much UV there is in that glow...
As long as they don't use special glass, the glass should absorb most of the UV-C spectrum. But it might still not be smart to stare at that for too long.
Yeah, I was wondering about the UV as well. Maybe the glass thickness of the bulb itself is enough. And/or, the panels in front of the cabinets, which look like plexiglass, might actually be glass and provide further attenuation.
@@heyarno we use UVC bulbs in our marijuana grow room at five minute intervals three times a day to prevent any infestations from insects or bacteria If any insects or bacteria are caught in the spectrum of that light they end up irradiated
I saw rectifiers of this type during a school trip to the GPO's Doddinghurst Long Distance Radio Station, near Brentwood, Essex. For a 14 year old, they were fascinating devices to watch as the glowing cyan light danced about in the bottle! The Radio Station is long gone.. part of the site being under a housing estate... ... and I am now 76!
I remember seeing one of these things (well, a smaller one) running an elevator somewhere on the Northern line of the London Underground sometime in the late '80s. Apparently the plan was to swap it out when it failed - but it had just carried on working...
Well-maintained "big" electrical machinery can just keep going and going, like the trams in Blackpool. Where I live in Japan has some pretty old trains running, too. They just get shunted from cities to increasingly-rural services. Then perhaps to the Phillippines, Indonesia etc to do decades more service there.
They sometimes failed but taking them out and putting them on a lorry and taking them for a drive to the manufacturers was normally enough to disturb the deposits inside and get them functioning again !
I am not much younger than Mr Walker, but i would pay money to apprentice under him. people like David hold the knowledge of the past. Thank you so much for posting this.
Such a shame that the mystery, romance and the glow has gone out of electrical devices these days. I am all for efficiency and safety but you gotta love the blue glow
About ten or so years ago, I saw an advert in a magazine for a retro-tech style record player for LP aficionados, and it had these vacuum tubes socketed into the corners because they glowed and electric blue color. Very cool, but difficult to find replacement parts for.
Great videos operated and did some maintenance on these in the late seventies as a young technician much larger units than shown on this video. DC was still being supplied at 500volts + to - to supply old lifts and escalators in Sydney Australia . The sub converted 11kv three phase to 6 phase low voltage then into the MAR,s then onto a big DC switchboard that looks like something out of Frankensteins Lab. I felt privileged back then to work on such strange and interesting technology , it was shut down completely in the early eighties and customers had to install local rectification in their switchrooms to run their old DC equipment.
I used to use these as late as 1998! I was a projectionist at a cinema in Cornwall and these rectifiers were used for our carbon arcs which were the light source for the projectors.
Thank you for post that! Almost 20 years ago I discovered an abandoned rectifier station for electric trains in an abandoned site. The station looked perfect with all stuff, including the big transformers and all instruments in the control room, except for the mercury arc rectifier tubes. I think the output voltage was 3,000 V... For some years now all was gone and the station doesn´t exist anymore, except in my memories and in a few pictures I made then.
What an incredible snapshot of industrial history. An excellent presentation sir! Informative and covered side topics but did so without getting off track. Thank you!
I worked part time as a projectionist in the 60s and our Gaumont Kalee projectors used these to produce DC for the Arc projection light source. Biggest problem was keeping the arc centre frame!
Bigger? Yes. Bulkier? Yes. Beautiful? Absolutely! The technology of the period is absolutely fascinating. Mercury rectifiers are one of those things that approaches the level of not just machinery, but also art. They are mesmerizing. Thank you for sharing this bit of history.
In America I saw units that were similar in function used in various aluminum smelting plants. The voltages delivered to the pot lines were considerably lower, but the amps were out of sight. Huge magnetic fields made you work differently.
@@flybobbie1449 in potline use there were hundreds of these tubes in parallel. Buss bars were routed just below ground surface. If you used a shovel it would point to the buss by magnetism alone almost 20' feet away. If you crossed the buried buss (aluminum 4' x 4' square) with a running engine it would stop before you got close. This was the site ruclips.net/video/SWI9NTwuvl0/видео.html. In 1980 when I was providing support it was called Anaconda Aluminum
But he said reverses current. Not reverses direction. So he is correct with saying 50 times a second. You only have current travelling in reverse direction once every cycle.
@@peterudbjorg For large currents in traction sub-stations we used 12 phase both for MARs and now Silicon rectifiers. 12 Phase is used to reduce the ripple and harmonic currents.
Really nice to see these again in action.....as an apprentice electrician years ago I got to work on some used for 1000v 1000amp supplies which powered coal trains hauling coal out of an open cut. I remember working to change one over and we accidentally smashed it....which was to easy to occur, being glass, heavy and having horns sticking out all over the place..... if they fail under full load, my opinion is they explode so treat with respect from a distance.....or at least wear safety glasses!
Well that brings back memories of working as an "assistant projectionist" at the Savoy Cinema. The first job when you got to work was to "flash up" the mercury arc rectifier to provide DC power to the carbon arc projectors and slide projector. The rectifier was in a separate room underneath the circle seats, which meant you had to walk through a dark cinema, just with the aid of a torch, to the room and power up the rectifier. The UV glow lit up the whole of the dark cinema, very eerie, bit like the "Quatermass Experiment" film. If it didn't "flash up" when it was powered up the trick was to slam the door to the cabinet and that usually worked, guess it was to get the starter electrode to operate. The cinema is long gone now, I wonder what happened to the rectifier and all that mercury.
@@gavincurtis I have similar issues with my memories of that period, but I don't think that AC generators became popular until vacuum tube rectifiers were introduced, mainly because of weight issues - mercury is quite heavy. I think even within the Copernicus class, there were significant technical advances over the class's lifetime, so we could both be right.
I was doing a Asbestos decontamination at a old decommissioned power station and there was, what look like to me “a huge lightbulb 💡”, it was about a foot and a half tall and about a foot round, in the shape of a peanut 🥜 with mercy in it. So that’s what it was a “rectifier”. I remember the plant had 4 turbines that made a total 48 megawatts, the older plant next door had 11 turbines that made 52 megawatts and that one rectifier, was the only one left. All the boss’s boss’s said about it was “it’s the only one left and if it gets broken your company is kicked off site”, my boss said “instant sacking”. I got stuck with decontaminating it as everyone else was too terrified to touch it. I treated it like a new born child and was terrified every-time i had to move it. The whole place is a museum now and that rectifier has been moved to the very own display case. The lasted survivor of 15 at the oldest/first hydro Tasmanian power station. waddamana
I have seen some old rectifiers in old abandoned cinemas in the UK, like Odeons, that had their electrical system modernized but left the old stuff there…
All phases inverted - if you just had the 3 phases, you would have 3 peaks 120 degrees apart, and smoothing that much power with capacitors would be impractical. Now if you invert the Phases.. A peaks at 0 degrees B at 120 C at 240 -A at 180 -B at 300 -C at 60 So now the peaks are only 60 degrees apart, and it doesn't drop far between them - like having twice as many cylinders makes an engine smoother
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and expertise. I have always been very interested in this field of history but as an industrial electrical shift engineer and never actually had the opportunity to see this field of power rectification. Thank you so much again
What a fabulous and informative post. Im just a humble domestic electrician. Something i always wanted to be but have always been interested in the history of electricity and the higher workings of it. Sadly i couldnt cope with the complicated mathematics although i did get my C&G in electrical installation. My first boss worked in Harwell in the 50s and constantly told me how i would have just loved it. "youve a real feel for this job and im delighted to have you on board" Bless him.
Even in my late 70s and after nearly 50 years as a professional engineer I still find these alien-looking devices quite fascinating.
give it a few generations and people will think its magic! because the new generations only know things that are trending on their phone
@@bent540 ok boomer
@@bent540 old doesnt mean good/better
@@OliverFlinn lol wtf do you know about anything! life isnt a phone! i know the only thing inside your head is about getting the new phone! lol youre pathetic!
@@OliverFlinn New doesn't mean better too
I love that the cooling fans are actually solid wood propellers
@@MFKR696 Who hurt you?
@@remek_ember His father was killed by a broken wood fan when the greedy plant manager just denied funding for the metal fans only a day earlier. It rained on his walk home after hearing the news only to have his landlord evict him for unpaid bills, to be replaced by the local wooden fan salesman.
@@MFKR696 They are wood to avoid flashover.
Also dead wrong about wood being a poor engineering material and being cheaper. Industry switched to metal and plastic for most applications because it is FAR cheaper to mass manufacture than wood, which does not *need* to be hand made, but hand-made is preferable because a craftsman can compensate for wood having non-homogenious grain structure that can lead to a high reject rate in "standardised" mass-production. Metal and plastic are just way easier to work with, and therefore cost less in terms of labour. It is true that wood is more sensitive to environment, but that is very context dependant. Under "perfect" conditions almost every compenent can last forever.
(On a final note: "Solid wood" refers in this context to the wood and construction being sturdy, dense, and well made. It's not even an obscure definition. Even if "hollow?" was intended as a joke, it just sounded stupid)
@@kilikus822 Although the guy in question has removed his (presumably toxic) comment, yours still made me giggle a lot : )
And this children is why Museums are still an absolute NECESSITY in the digital age.
I saw a guy here turn on a new old stock one in his living room.
@@MetalDEmpire Neat :D
@@MetalDEmpire Photonicinduction
@@MetalDEmpire He struck it and powered it up, yes. Would've been interesting if he had hooked up the output.
@@cjmillsnun at higher loads, the ozone would become rather irritating.
I love how modern solutions are so simple… like solid state vs tubes, fuel injection vs carburation, turbine engines vs reciprocating engines, internal combustion vs external combustion, etc etc.. but engineers had to figure the difficult way that was technologically feasible first before things like materials and processes and tolerances allowed simpler things to be developed.
Nothing manufactured today is "simple". In fact, every electrical and electronic apparatus manufatured today is far, far more complex, and far, more likely to fail. None of these modern contrivances are built to endure; and there are far more components in them to fail. The achille's heel of semiconductors is that they *semi-conduct*, which means much heat is generated at their operating junctions (which are very small), and that heat will ultimately cause them to fail. The only thing that has really been gained with all this is *miniaturization*. But, in fact, these things are so tiny now that, except in rare circumstances, they are not even designed to be repaired... they are simply designed to be discarded... they are DESIGNED to fail. And, also, regrettably, there are very few people left that can even do repairs on these things, and with every passing day, their numbers decline yet further.
Which means, essentially, that we have become slaves to these devices, and to those whom produce them.
i think photonicinduction just broke the algorithm with his mercury arc rectifier
This video humbles me in how much I still don't know. We stand truly on the shoulders of giants.
Shoulders of G.i.-ants/ents….
People haven’t a clue
the mercury vapor bulbs are about the coolest version of real science being as wild as science fiction. but personally i find all those well maintained, now-antiquated switches and meters to be the most beautiful part of this display.
My late grandfather was an engineer and was involved as a consultant in the construction of our local museum of transport and technology in Auckland, NZ. He explained to me that when the trolley buses were phased out in Auckland in the 70' - 80's the mercury arc rectifiers were relocated to a building at the museum to supply DC to the trams that run from the museum to the Auckland zoo and on to the aircraft museum down the road. Visitors to the museum are able to stand and watch them operating.
When I was a boy there was a man in Bamber Bridge (nr. Preston, Lancs) who manufactured car batteries in a big shed by the railway line. To charge his batteries he had one of these rectifying the mains, and then simply put about 15-20 batteries in series on the output. I remember being fascinated by that shimmering dot of blinding light.
Whoa.
That man was an idiot....
Charging that many large lead-acid batteries (bombs) in series, off straight mains voltage, is just stupid.
💣 💥 🔥
I am trying to thnk of the failure modes .... lurid ... But i guess it would have worked.
And a big thank you to whoever saved this equipment from the scrap heap.
It's great to see such an impressive bit of kit restored by the museum. A very well produced and informative video. Well done.
I agree, very well done!
Restored? 🤔 That Tech My Friend Had Always Been There, The Whole Building Is Connected To It, It Isnt Just For "Display" - He Tells Us This When He Turns Them On And Switches The Load Over 🧐.
Mercury Arc Rectifiers Were Around LONG Before 1901 👈🏼 & Were NOT Invented By Whom They Claim 🤣.
Much Love,
💚
I watched this, and still have no idea how these things work. but they have to be the single most steampunk devices I have ever seen.
Who else got recommended this after seeing Photonicinduction's mercury arc rectifier video?
Yessir
me
Other way around for me actually, although coming from Photonic originally (weird, right?)
Yep, me too!!!
Me too.
A work colleague told me he was at a power station which used these devices. I guess possibly to provide excitation for an alternator. One day he had to take a party of school children around the station, all of whom he thought were pretty disinterested. He showed them the steam driven alternator and said this is where we make the electricity and then pointed to the rectifier and said this is where we bottle it. The next day he was taken to task by the station manager...clearly their teacher wasn't happy.
The days before 9-11 when the public could visit power stations.
I was heading to lunch through the turbine hall once, when one of the old hands shouted out, slightly too loudly 'you can see up the skirts of the holiday-camp visitors through the open mesh floors'.
Lol Almost walked into some scafolding.
@@BitTwisted1
Is it totally illegal for the public to visit power stations? Also, is it routine for staff to use the turbine hall as a foot traffic throughfare? There was a case where a superheated steam main near a workers' breakroom ruptured and killed everybody inside.
@@gregorymalchuk272
I'm not sure about the restrictions on visiting today, but I know years ago I visited the Hoover Dam and was able to walk through the dam and the turbine hall there.
It's not only steam-based plants that have turbine halls, though likely the large majority are some sort of combustion-based generators.
@@heyallenify In 2006 vehicles still crossed the river on the top of the dam...there was a bridge being constructed nearby at the time. Now, traffic is on the bridge, don't know about tours...but that was the way you got to vegas from arizona, litterally on and over the dam.
@@somethingsomeonesaid6455 I only went to the dam as a young teen, and that was around 90...
It's been a few years for me, so things have definitely changed!
I've seen one in person, the video can never do them justice for how amazing they look when they load up. it ran a historical tram bus in New Zealand
MOTAT, Auckland. That rectifier is still in daily operation.
@@JamieSteam used to take my children there in the '70's ,then my grandchildren . used to tell them it was an alien from space lol. Still running today as far as I know, was for the museum trams.
@@JamieSteam Thanks for the reminder - I saw the one(s)? at MOTAT as a kid but didn't understand what they were. I must go and take another look! So much fun compared to silicon... A huge pool of mercury AND the arc changes brightness depending on current draw. What's not to love? :D
@@Agent24Electronics yes if they had money it would make an awesome display as a crazy sparking glowing thing, in a clear case in the middle of the room. Unfortunately MOTAT has been hard up for cash the past 40 years or so! I remember visiting in the early 80s, and I swear some of the displays haven't been dusted since then.
I Love that Kind of technology. Allways gives me a Steampunk vibe
I continue to be TOTALLY and COMPLETELY amazed by how people could design electrical items like this during the infancy of electrical power.
You would think it was infancy but from HIStory we actually see entire cities filled with trams and millions of electric lights in the various " worlds fairs" in the mid to late 1800s. I was always taught that the 1800s were filled with oil lanterns and dust when in reality massive construction projects happened worldwide with bustling electric systems seemingly popping up overnight. If anything our electric vehicles are way behind what was being done back then. Almost like entropy is real.
These were really common on power stations, generating DC for the instrumentation battery backed up DC supply buses. The were a reliable and efficient way of generating large amounts of DC before silicon rectifiers appeared. I worked at Dungeness Magnox power station in the early 2000s. (On a completely separate project but engineers talk). I believe there were a suite of large mercury arc rectifiers supplying power to the instrumentation buses. Apareltly they occasionally blew out, which made for an interesting time I'm sure, (Let them cool down,replace fuses, then restart them and they were good for another few years). The station was scheduled for shut down in 2006 and Magnox were somewhat reluctant to spend millions replacing them with a new silicone rectifier system with so little time left. Obviously there were multiple redundant parallel systems but there were no spares available. Then some identical spare units turned up from the London underground which had never actually been turned on. I'm not sure if they needed to be fitted before the station was decommissioned, that part would have been turned off sometime after the fuel was removed, so probably 2012 ish. The trials and tribulations of keeping 50 year old equipment running :¬)
Just had a look and the underground uses a strange DC system of +430V on 1 power rail and -210V on the other. So back in the day they'd have had a large number of these Octo(Hexa)puses
Yes quite large ones existed for example on the DC links that often shared power between countries. The large ones however were not glass like in this video. The big ones were constructed in steel and had vacuum pumps on them to keep them pulled down. The escaping mercury vapours caused some contamination and an occupational health hazard. The attractive glassware we are shown here could often be seen in elevator machine rooms at the top of blocks of flats and offices as they all ran brushed DC motors and controls. I saw an antiquated example of this in Kiev recently in some soviet era flats. If you see a lift with a chair in it then beware. If it has a chair with a pot on the floor under it then definately dont use it.
SCR’s and now power transistors
Super cool info Frank, sounds like you lead more than an average life career wise. 👍🇺🇸
The factory I work in had DC control voltage to control the AC equipment, as well as some rather large motors which also ran both AC and DC. We used to have a motor of several hundred hp connected to two generators, one on each side, so one generated +125 VDC and the other -125 VDC, so the total generated was 250 VDC. All that is gone now, replaced by solid state rectifiers.
Ancient tech still kicking around and being useful..and they say old technology isn't cool...definitely cool😎
I thought this was a well executed video and it was a thrill to watch. Thank you
One of my local museums has a set of these supplying power to a heritage street tram system. As the trams accelerate and decelerate, the arc changes. Very cool to see working!
Seeing one of these at MOTAT is what drew me to this video.
Great to see this old equipment live and working, there's something artistic and magical about the way things were done in the old days.
I just saw a video of some kids exploring an old Soviet bunker. Everything was falling apart and rusted to hell, but there was still power. They turned on the mercury arc rectifier and the damn thing was working like it was brand new. Impressive piece of machinery.
@@genericalfishtycoon3853 Awesome, do you happen to remember the video title? I love old explorations like that.
@@fardreaming By a "Shiey", video is called "Found huge 1940s bunker complex with power and water" They turn on the mercury arc rectifier at 9:25
This equipment was mentioned in a novel I’m reading. I’d never heard of it before, so it was quite cool to see a video of the actual equipment in use. Thanks for posting.
care to share the novels title.. XD
@@faber_3285 I came here from a novel called “Strange Practice” by Vivian Shaw. I’m assuming it’s the same novel. Idk how many books could possible be talking about mercury arc rectifiers
@@curiouser-curiouser whats it about? Never heard of novels that mentions rectifiers. Sounds like my kind of book maybe.
@@Wtfinc I don't know which novel they're referring to, but you're going to love William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's "The Difference Engine"!
@@googleblows4016 Thanks for the recommend!
The early 1900s ingenuity and especialy electrical ingenuity is so amazing to discover!
I am always fascinated by the "touch and die" switchboards. Nice restoration.
First saw M.A.R.s in a PhotonicInduction video! These are *SO COOL*
I actually just saw Photonicinduction's new vid the other day powering up a mercy arc rectifier. I had never seen one in action before, though I'd seen several on display before throughout my adult life.
Truly fascinating to behold. Works of art, now. These are treasure now. For a time nixie tubes were also in this vintage category until that Czech fellow began producing them again.
To be honest, I do think we should interest future generations whatever way we can for fields like these.
Didn't check his channel in a while. Too many subscriptions lol.
@@Drachistyj_izumrud same but I stumbled across it because I happened to be looking for something similar in tech
@@Drachistyj_izumrud He hasn't made a new video in quite a long time.
Far more impressive than today's rectifiers.
I guess this is where ideas for the early sci-fi film sets came from.
Seeing all that glowing, I was really hoping for a portal to another dimension to open every time he flipped a breaker.
Commenting to feed the youtube algorithm. Excellent informative video, great explanation David Walker.
Thanks! The electric car chargers of the early 1900s had to have had smaller ones.
HOW CAN YOU ONLY HAVE 2 VIDEOS. THIS IS AMAZING. PLEASE MAKE MORE.
Nice to see gems of videos unburied I never seen before all due to photonicinduction. Nice job on this one. Cheers.
I was an apprentice electrician in a steel works in the mid 70s. The older end of the works employed these MARs. I could never walk past them without being intrigued by their operation and captivated by their beauty. Thank you for posting this video.
There is one these still in use in the Durie Hill elevator tower, Wanganui New Zealand.
I was a student apprentice with Hackbridge and Hewittic in 1966 when they still making the MAR.
I worked there for a time in the sixties, and was fascinated by these rectifiers, and also by the huge 240 MVA & 400 MVA transformers built there - and the testing of them. Shipping them out via Wynn's and Pickfords was fun, too.
I remember seeing one of those mercury arc bulbs and had always wondered, what that little electrode bouncing around was doing. Thanks to bring back this technology view.
As a 16 year old industrial plant fitter ( 43 year ago ) , one of my first tasks was to go into the ''rectifier room '' and sweep the black dust of the floor , i was handed a dustpan and brush to do it , a few hours later finished said task but felt strange , kinda burning skin and tight chest . i now know all about U.V. and ozone , safety was truly a joke back yonder . Thanks for posting .
That was 1980s.... as a young bloke you may not have known but the workplace bloody did and that is a very poor show. And a shitty thing to do to an Aprentice ... for shame ... About then I was playing with EHT stuff on CRTs and I was also working in a Hospital. We would never have tolerated that .
@@markawbolton You'd be surprised how much of that still goes on today. People are just more secretive and sneaky about it.
"Well, I was treat like shit as an apprentice, and it never did me any harm. Now I'm going to treat you like shit so you know how it feels too."
@@Dave5400 I once worked with a bloke who went through that. He would never express an opinion about anything. He would always appear busy. If any thing remotly problematic showed up on the jobs list he would vanish. His conversations consisted of "Yes". He was all appearances and no skill and didnt care. I often wonder if he could have amounted to anything if he had a REAL Apprenticeship.
I wondered why this guy never mentioned UV produced by these "lamps", but at any rate, should the glass envelope crack there wouldn't be much rejoicing in more than few homes that night...
@@MrKotBonifacy as dave5400 said ............
After working in a USA power plant for almost 30 years, I find this fascinating. His explanation was absolute
I saw some in operation when I was a kid on the train line that transported coal from Yallourne Open Cut to the Briquette Factory I Morwell (Victoria, Australia). They were dotted along the track in the power houses to run the DC overhead line for the trains and as the train approached they got brighter then went back to a dull base glow like these as the train got further up the line. We were being shown by a friend of Dads who worked on them - he called them ‘The Purple Octopus’. I worked there when I left School and they had only just replaced them when I started as an Electrician. The units were still in situ but not connected - that was in 1987 so the were in service for quite some time. 👍
Thank you for explaining the basics of mercury rectifiers. I've seen and heard of them before as obscure relics from the past and never really understood the principles of operation. Now I still do not understand it to my satisfaction but I understand a great deal more than I did before watching this video.
Shiey recently went into an old WWII bunker that had one of these in it. And it still powered right up. Mad stuff, especially now that I understand how it works.
I'd love to see some high speed video of the arc jumping from anode to anode. Maybe reach out to the slow mo guys
Soo cool people figured these things out back in the day! Looks like it's WAY ahead of it's time! Nowadays, people are more concerned with which color to dye their hair, or which soy latte is the best.
photonicinduction just has one of these in some cupboard somewhere in his house
Very interesting. I once visited the power station supplying the trolleybus system in Tampere, Finland. One could clearly see the difference, when a trolleybus accelerated.
Excellent presentation. I visited Kempton in November 2017, but the engine wasn't running and we didn't see these rectifiers. But there was a very kind gentleman who gave us a lovely tour of the triple expansion engines and the turbines in the basement. He also told us an interesting story about how a stuck water valve caked up with scale was unstuck. I have to visit again sometime, when the engine will be powered. Thank you for sharing!
Matthew
I967 so how did they get it unstuck?
This is unbelievable to see in action. I know it's not an efficient system compared to modern converters, but I am beyond glad to see the museum rescued and preserved such a wonderful piece of engineering history
As a child I remember going to central London from Kent. There are some big metal doors just outside Embankment tube station. I was fascinated by the glow through the crack from the mercury arc rectified that powered the tube line traction current.
I wonder how much UV there is in that glow...
Considering these use the same principle as mercury vapor lamps but without the phosphor, there must have been a lot of free UV light present.
As long as they don't use special glass, the glass should absorb most of the UV-C spectrum. But it might still not be smart to stare at that for too long.
Yeah, I was wondering about the UV as well. Maybe the glass thickness of the bulb itself is enough. And/or, the panels in front of the cabinets, which look like plexiglass, might actually be glass and provide further attenuation.
@@heyarno we use UVC bulbs in our marijuana grow room at five minute intervals three times a day to prevent any infestations from insects or bacteria
If any insects or bacteria are caught in the spectrum of that light they end up irradiated
@@thecloneguyz Why you growing marijuana? lol
I saw rectifiers of this type during a school trip to the GPO's Doddinghurst Long Distance Radio Station, near Brentwood, Essex.
For a 14 year old, they were fascinating devices to watch as the glowing cyan light danced about in the bottle!
The Radio Station is long gone.. part of the site being under a housing estate...
... and I am now 76!
I remember seeing one of these things (well, a smaller one) running an elevator somewhere on the Northern line of the London Underground sometime in the late '80s. Apparently the plan was to swap it out when it failed - but it had just carried on working...
Well-maintained "big" electrical machinery can just keep going and going, like the trams in Blackpool. Where I live in Japan has some pretty old trains running, too. They just get shunted from cities to increasingly-rural services. Then perhaps to the Phillippines, Indonesia etc to do decades more service there.
They sometimes failed but taking them out and putting them on a lorry and taking them for a drive to the manufacturers was normally enough to disturb the deposits inside and get them functioning again !
I am not much younger than Mr Walker, but i would pay money to apprentice under him. people like David hold the knowledge of the past. Thank you so much for posting this.
Really good - and really impressive! It’s good to see such a technology conserved and also still working
Great to see such fascinating equipment and presented by someone with such an obvious wealth of knowledge and experience.
Thanks!
Such a shame that the mystery, romance and the glow has gone out of electrical devices these days.
I am all for efficiency and safety but you gotta love the blue glow
About ten or so years ago, I saw an advert in a magazine for a retro-tech style record player for LP aficionados, and it had these vacuum tubes socketed into the corners because they glowed and electric blue color. Very cool, but difficult to find replacement parts for.
Great videos operated and did some maintenance on these in the late seventies as a young technician much larger units than shown on this video. DC was still being supplied at 500volts + to - to supply old lifts and escalators in Sydney Australia . The sub converted 11kv three phase to 6 phase low voltage then into the MAR,s then onto a big DC switchboard that looks like something out of Frankensteins Lab. I felt privileged back then to work on such strange and interesting technology , it was shut down completely in the early eighties and customers had to install local rectification in their switchrooms to run their old DC equipment.
I used to use these as late as 1998! I was a projectionist at a cinema in Cornwall and these rectifiers were used for our carbon arcs which were the light source for the projectors.
Love the wooden propellers for cooling!
Somehow a “!!! FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER !!!” seems rather puny...
Trust me, you don't want this one blowing up in your face!
@@kleetus92 mmm the smell of Mercury vapour in the morning
If you like this sorta stuff. Go check out photonic induction. He literally just uploaded a video about these magic mercury squids
thanks electro boom
Fuck electro he is a nursery teacher compared to photo
Thank you for post that! Almost 20 years ago I discovered an abandoned rectifier station for electric trains in an abandoned site. The station looked perfect with all stuff, including the big transformers and all instruments in the control room, except for the mercury arc rectifier tubes. I think the output voltage was 3,000 V...
For some years now all was gone and the station doesn´t exist anymore, except in my memories and in a few pictures I made then.
More please.
David Walker your narration is fantastic.
Thanks for making my day😘
What an incredible snapshot of industrial history. An excellent presentation sir! Informative and covered side topics but did so without getting off track. Thank you!
I worked part time as a projectionist in the 60s and our Gaumont Kalee projectors used these to produce DC for the Arc projection light source. Biggest problem was keeping the arc centre frame!
that's crazy!, Peter thanksfor the story
Bigger? Yes. Bulkier? Yes. Beautiful? Absolutely!
The technology of the period is absolutely fascinating. Mercury rectifiers are one of those things that approaches the level of not just machinery, but also art. They are mesmerizing.
Thank you for sharing this bit of history.
And now I feel cheated my car's alternator only has boring diodes. I'd love one of these under the bonnet. Much more exciting.
And much more beneficial to your health when you crash, right ?
With dimethyl mercury fuel injection pump.
Its not a bonnet.. its either hood or trunk
@@helpabrothawithasubisaiah5316 or a frunk if you are American and have no engine in the front.
It's bonnets, wings and bumpers all the way in the UK.
@@chasevans7171 why does the UK always gotta mess things up.. you guys take words and add extra letters, and make them less efficient
Thank you for restoring these beauties, that blue glow is so heartwarming!
In America I saw units that were similar in function used in various aluminum smelting plants. The voltages delivered to the pot lines were considerably lower, but the amps were out of sight. Huge magnetic fields made you work differently.
Friend described how powerful the magnetic field was around a simple spot welder.
@@flybobbie1449 in potline use there were hundreds of these tubes in parallel. Buss bars were routed just below ground surface. If you used a shovel it would point to the buss by magnetism alone almost 20' feet away. If you crossed the buried buss (aluminum 4' x 4' square) with a running engine it would stop before you got close. This was the site ruclips.net/video/SWI9NTwuvl0/видео.html. In 1980 when I was providing support it was called Anaconda Aluminum
Incredible and scary engineering,.kudos to the ballsy engineers that invented and tested this concept
1:50 Actually, 50 Hz current reverses direction 100 times per second. Each reversal is 1/2 cycle.
I prefer a 120hz refresh rate...
But he said reverses current. Not reverses direction. So he is correct with saying 50 times a second. You only have current travelling in reverse direction once every cycle.
@@c31979839 And of course, for bigger currents onbe would use 3-phase with 3 or 6 anodes. :)
@@peterudbjorg For large currents in traction sub-stations we used 12 phase both for MARs and now Silicon rectifiers. 12 Phase is used to reduce the ripple and harmonic currents.
Thank you Mr Walker and all the team. Great video.
Glad you enjoyed it
Ahhh. . . There's gotta be a few
Photonicinduction fans in the chat eh? Greeting conrades. :)
I watched Photonicinduction’s video on one of these and now I just got this recommended!
absolutely fascinating. i love seeing how this old technology works
Really nice to see these again in action.....as an apprentice electrician years ago I got to work on some used for 1000v 1000amp supplies which powered coal trains hauling coal out of an open cut.
I remember working to change one over and we accidentally smashed it....which was to easy to occur, being glass, heavy and having horns sticking out all over the place..... if they fail under full load, my opinion is they explode so treat with respect from a distance.....or at least wear safety glasses!
This is getting recommended after watching Photonicinduction.
Reminds me of the old Frankenstein lab. So cool.
What a wonderful working museum. Once Covid is consigned to the dustbin of history, I'm going to pay them a visit.
This was very interesting. Electricity back in the day was visually entertaining.
Well that brings back memories of working as an "assistant projectionist" at the Savoy Cinema. The first job when you got to work was to "flash up" the mercury arc rectifier to provide DC power to the carbon arc projectors and slide projector. The rectifier was in a separate room underneath the circle seats, which meant you had to walk through a dark cinema, just with the aid of a torch, to the room and power up the rectifier. The UV glow lit up the whole of the dark cinema, very eerie, bit like the "Quatermass Experiment" film. If it didn't "flash up" when it was powered up the trick was to slam the door to the cabinet and that usually worked, guess it was to get the starter electrode to operate. The cinema is long gone now, I wonder what happened to the rectifier and all that mercury.
I am always amazed at how far we have come with electricity and electronics from those days.
Really, electric cars were much better then
PhotonicInduction sent me here.
What happened @3:06 🤔, why did they cut and skip the audio....
What voltage drop did the rectifiers have under load?
I have to get to London one of the days to visit that museum, such a jewel.
You watch one photonicinduction video in 2021 and now yt thinks I want to see mercury arc rectifiers.. well I do, just not on the screen !
All these people in the comments here are what we need more of! Love to see it. This world is truely fascinating.
looks more like something you would find in a space ship
Google 'Fortress The Last Day Of War' and see what you think.
That would be something E.E. 'Doc' Smith might have used with his giant Bus Bars
Probably the 1940s flying saucers used these. But then, they may have just used DC generators to avoid needing rectifiers.
@@BrightBlueJim I thought only the Coppernicus class interplanetary scout vehicles used DC generators of that time. It has been so long, I forget....
@@gavincurtis I have similar issues with my memories of that period, but I don't think that AC generators became popular until vacuum tube rectifiers were introduced, mainly because of weight issues - mercury is quite heavy. I think even within the Copernicus class, there were significant technical advances over the class's lifetime, so we could both be right.
Fascinating and beautiful! Your explanation of how it worked was great, thanks!
I was waiting for Marty Feldman to make an Appearance when the rectifiers went to 40 Amps.
I was doing a Asbestos decontamination at a old decommissioned power station and there was, what look like to me “a huge lightbulb 💡”, it was about a foot and a half tall and about a foot round, in the shape of a peanut 🥜 with mercy in it. So that’s what it was a “rectifier”. I remember the plant had 4 turbines that made a total 48 megawatts, the older plant next door had 11 turbines that made 52 megawatts and that one rectifier, was the only one left. All the boss’s boss’s said about it was “it’s the only one left and if it gets broken your company is kicked off site”, my boss said “instant sacking”. I got stuck with decontaminating it as everyone else was too terrified to touch it. I treated it like a new born child and was terrified every-time i had to move it. The whole place is a museum now and that rectifier has been moved to the very own display case. The lasted survivor of 15 at the oldest/first hydro Tasmanian power station. waddamana
Some crazy person will hook one of these up in their living room some day...
Insert "Photonic Induction"
@@thegiantgaming7592 "wink"
I have seen some old rectifiers in old abandoned cinemas in the UK, like Odeons, that had their electrical system modernized but left the old stuff there…
Is the 6 phase from 415V 3 phase but with two of each phase opposite each other?
Yes. The basement transformer splits each of the 3 phases into two. Take look at: www.vias.org/matsch_capmag/matsch_caps_magnetics_chap6_12_07.html
@@andrewlindh5047 Wow, that's confusing
All phases inverted - if you just had the 3 phases, you would have 3 peaks 120 degrees apart, and smoothing that much power with capacitors would be impractical.
Now if you invert the Phases..
A peaks at 0 degrees
B at 120
C at 240
-A at 180
-B at 300
-C at 60
So now the peaks are only 60 degrees apart, and it doesn't drop far between them - like having twice as many cylinders makes an engine smoother
thank you that was the coolest thing I've seen .. the arc was one way only ..making the current flow one way ..brilliant idea ..
Very cool devices. Pity mercury is so stupidly toxic; I'd love to have one in my workshop. Every mad scientist needs one of these babies in his lab.
There are other kinds of big tube rectifiers too like tungsten-argon
Only toxic if your dumb break it then touch it its like lithium batteries there only dangerous to idiots
Oh a battery it soft let's bend it *explosion /flames *
Check out this video of a man testing one out in his lab, it's 50 years old never been fired up. ruclips.net/video/2pDcv6g1FE0/видео.html
@@NIGHTOWL-jf9zt For Lab read front room.
I love these things so much. The blue spectral glow of mercury is so eery.
Who's here after PhotonicInduction's video?
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and expertise. I have always been very interested in this field of history but as an industrial electrical shift engineer and never actually had the opportunity to see this field of power rectification. Thank you so much again
Great video! No wonder some people thought of electricity as witchcraft.
Catweasel did !
What a fabulous and informative post. Im just a humble domestic electrician. Something i always wanted to be but have always been interested in the history of electricity and the higher workings of it. Sadly i couldnt cope with the complicated mathematics although i did get my C&G in electrical installation. My first boss worked in Harwell in the 50s and constantly told me how i would have just loved it. "youve a real feel for this job and im delighted to have you on board" Bless him.
Photonic induction brought me here