Any idea what this battery was used for? Found it at a flea market for $1.

The two-piece Bakelite case says The Bristol Company, Waterbury, Conn.
Inside are two glass capsules with different stuff in the bottom. The bottom
stuff in capsule looks like clay, the other looks like a ball of wrinkled
foil. A sticker on the left capsule says the Eppley Laboratory, Newport,
R.I.

Both capsules still contain liquid. They are cushioned in a tidy little felt
blanket.

Phil "just curious" Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

In article ,
"Phil Nelson" wrote:

Any idea what this battery was used for? Found it at a flea market for $1.

The two-piece Bakelite case says The Bristol Company, Waterbury, Conn.
Inside are two glass capsules with different stuff in the bottom. The bottom
stuff in capsule looks like clay, the other looks like a ball of wrinkled
foil. A sticker on the left capsule says the Eppley Laboratory, Newport,
R.I.

Both capsules still contain liquid. They are cushioned in a tidy little felt
blanket.

Phil "just curious" Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html
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[Image]
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[Image]

It says right on it that it is a "Standard Cell". I believe "Standard
Cells" are used for calibrating electrical instruments like voltmeters
and etc. I also believe that they will be damaged by drawing current
from them, so they must be used in special calibration circuits.


Regards,

John Byrns

--
Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/

Phil,
See below.
Dale

[The "standard cell" is a saturated Weston cell, containing an electrode of
mercury in

contact with a paste of mercurous sulfate and an electrode of cadmium
amalgam in

contact with a saturated solution or cadmium sulfate. When little or no
current is drawn

from the cell, it produces a terminal voltage of long-term stability. The
precise value for

each cell is given on its label.]

"Phil Nelson" wrote in message
...
Any idea what this battery was used for? Found it at a flea market for $1.

The two-piece Bakelite case says The Bristol Company, Waterbury, Conn.
Inside are two glass capsules with different stuff in the bottom. The
bottom
stuff in capsule looks like clay, the other looks like a ball of wrinkled
foil. A sticker on the left capsule says the Eppley Laboratory, Newport,
R.I.

Both capsules still contain liquid. They are cushioned in a tidy little
felt
blanket.

Phil "just curious" Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Sounds like a bingo. There is an old piece of tape on the side of the case
on which someone wrote "1.01998 volts," followed some other tiny scribbles
which have been worn off.

Phil

"dale" wrote in message
...
[The "standard cell" is a saturated Weston cell, containing an electrode
of mercury in

contact with a paste of mercurous sulfate and an electrode of cadmium
amalgam in

contact with a saturated solution or cadmium sulfate. When little or no
current is drawn

from the cell, it produces a terminal voltage of long-term stability. The
precise value for

each cell is given on its label.]

I have two of them. The were indeed for verifying test equipment. Be fairly
careful with them, as they are old and becoming fragile. Use volt meter set
on a scale that will allow you to see 1 volt or more. They also make great
bookends, for light books....
p.s. I paid 50 cents apiece for mine....

bob in phx....
"Phil Nelson" wrote in message
...
Sounds like a bingo. There is an old piece of tape on the side of the case
on which someone wrote "1.01998 volts," followed some other tiny scribbles
which have been worn off.

Phil

"dale" wrote in message
...
[The "standard cell" is a saturated Weston cell, containing an electrode
of mercury in

contact with a paste of mercurous sulfate and an electrode of cadmium
amalgam in

contact with a saturated solution or cadmium sulfate. When little or no
current is drawn

from the cell, it produces a terminal voltage of long-term stability. The
precise value for

each cell is given on its label.]

Phil Nelson wrote:
Any idea what this battery was used for? Found it at a flea market for $1.

The two-piece Bakelite case says The Bristol Company, Waterbury, Conn.
Inside are two glass capsules with different stuff in the bottom. The
bottom stuff in capsule looks like clay, the other looks like a ball of
wrinkled foil. A sticker on the left capsule says the Eppley Laboratory,
Newport, R.I.

Both capsules still contain liquid. They are cushioned in a tidy little
felt blanket.

Phil "just curious" Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ha! That inside view is exactly the picture in my old
study books showing a standard voltage reference.
It might even still work.
If you want to test, use a high quality voltmeter,
and check its voltage.
DONT let it deliver any current, because it becomes
useless rather quickly.
In my book its called a WESTON ELEMENT, and used as a
calibration standard(very expensive).
On the plus site is mercury, covered with cadmium sulfate.
On the minus site is mercury+12percent cadmium, also covered
with cadmium sulfate.
The fluid is water saturated with cadmium sulfate.
The voltage should be 1.0183 volt at 20 degree Celcius.(68 F)
The book is from 1958

"Sjouke Burry" wrote in message
...
The book is from 1958

You learn something new every day. I had never heard of these. Can anyone
elaborate a bit on what exactly they were used in? Calibrating what,
meters?

Buck Frobisher wrote:
"Sjouke Burry" wrote in message
...
The book is from 1958

You learn something new every day. I had never heard of these. Can anyone
elaborate a bit on what exactly they were used in? Calibrating what,
meters?


Anyplace/time you needed an accurate voltage.
In the lab you had very accurate resistor divider banks,
where you reduced your test-voltage to the same voltage
as the cell.
That was tested with a very sensitive galvanometer,
where, when the galvanometer indicated zero (micro)volt
difference between the two, your testvoltage followed
From: Vtest=bankratio X cellvoltage.
In this way, at the moment of the readout, the cell did
not supply any current, and thus the error was minimal.

And yes, meter calibration,reference source calibration
(current and voltage) were ever needed.
And even to calibrate these reference cells, because due to
impurities non of these cells had exactly the same voltage.
Now, how to calibrate the first one? I have no idea, but in
most countries you had a standards lab to do that for you.

Bill Jeffrey wrote:
Sjouke Burry wrote:
Ha! That inside view is exactly the picture in my old
study books showing a standard voltage reference.
It might even still work.
If you want to test, use a high quality voltmeter,
and check its voltage.
DONT let it deliver any current, because it becomes
useless rather quickly.

OK, I understand that putting it under any kind of load will produce an
erroneous voltage. But if you do pull a few milliamps, is permanent
damage done, or will it recover (however slowly)? In other words, what
is the chemical reaction going on inside the cell? And how does it
manage to continue to produce a VERY constant voltage (plus or minus a
few microvolts!) for years and years, but will be damaged by pulling a
couple milliamps out of it for a few seconds?

Bill Jeffrey
You should reduce current load to microamps, and for as short a time
as possible.
I dont know the chemical side of things, but it was customary to
add a series resistance to the galvanometer to reduce load current to
the unbalanced circuit until balance was almost achieved.
Then the series resistor was shorted, and at he higher sensitivity
the balancing act was futher improved.
Milly_amps are definitely bad for the cell.
Any digital multimeter of current age are oke to measure cell voltage.
Almost all multimeters nowadays are several(10-200) megohms when measuring voltage.

"Bill Jeffrey" wrote in message
...
Sjouke Burry wrote:
Ha! That inside view is exactly the picture in my old
study books showing a standard voltage reference.
It might even still work.
If you want to test, use a high quality voltmeter,
and check its voltage.
DONT let it deliver any current, because it becomes
useless rather quickly.

OK, I understand that putting it under any kind of load will produce an
erroneous voltage. But if you do pull a few milliamps, is permanent damage
done, or will it recover (however slowly)? In other words, what is the
chemical reaction going on inside the cell? And how does it manage to continue
to produce a VERY constant voltage (plus or minus a few microvolts!) for years
and years, but will be damaged by pulling a couple milliamps out of it for a
few seconds?

Bill Jeffrey


Bill, the standard cell is not a power source. Its sole purpose in life is to
provide a stable, low temperature coefficient source of voltage. It is designed
to be used intermittently, and to work into a very high resistance (ideally,
infinite resistance) load. It is used for calibration of very accurate
measuring instruments and systems. And yes, if you draw even a few milliamps
from the cell, it will be damaged.

I'm no chemist, and don't pretend to know anything about the chemical mechanism
that gives the standard cell its characteristics. If you're really that
interested in that, I suggest that you search the internet with Google to find
texts that describe the chemistry involved.
Search terms:
Weston saturated cell standard cell

--
Dave M
MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just substitute the appropriate characters in the
address)

"In theory, there isn't any difference between theory and practice. In
practice, there is." - Yogi Berra