Windsor all wave signal generator.

[Pat Pending]

I've just inherited a Windsor 65C signal gen. It seems complete but is fitted with a two core flex (metal cabinet) and has no internal line fuse! It has a couple of drilytics and waxies that look like they could do with pensioning off, but I can't find any information on this specific model should it need any further work. Is anyone a fan? I'd like to get this one going, rather than just toss it on the to-do heap (which is threatening to take over the workshop).

Cheers.
Andy.

[pwdrive]

There's an old thread here that apparently has a schematic/layout etc:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showt...hp?t=56225

Lawrence.

[Pat Pending]

Thanks Lawrence, much appreciated, didn't come up for me when I did a search, but it looks like a reverse engineered drawing of a modified unit rather than an original, should be enough to go on though.

Cheers, 
Andy.

[Mike Watterson]

I have a Taylor 65b from about 1944 or 1945. I have an original Taylor circuit which I added to.
It didn't need recalibrated.
Works well, though external modulation lacks sensitivity. The input line filter had gone "bang". So I put a modern filter. I added a three core flex and replaced the battery type RF out with BNC. I added a buffered BNC before the gain & Attenuator to drive a counter.

Modified:
   

I may have C9 & C10 the wrong way.
The schematic is from Taylor, but had NO values at all! So I added values.

I had to repair the modulation transformer, it had snapped/corroded rather than burning out, I only had to unwind a couple of layers and wind back on (it was the winding in series with RF osc Anode).

The Modulation transformer is on the 400Hz osc / audio amp and the the HT to RF is via 2nd winding.
Most of the faulty caps were on the PSU tag board.

I have a modern DDS based generator, but I often use the Taylor as it's simpler to change level or frequencies than the REALLY STUPID menu system on the DDS generator.  Really in interests of saving cost the user interface on so many TVs, Test gear and Radio is garbage (TV has dark grey lettering on black panel without real buttons, purely touch sensitive. DAB/FM radio has slight mouldings on buttons, angled toward rear, Up/Down for volume and a menu that needs manual to set alarm or rescan or what ever.).

   
The Taylor works well and simple to use.
The attenuator uses alternate positions on switch to reduce leakage.

I think I have the manual, but unlike the DAB/FM alarm-clock radio or my Radio Time synchronised "insane to set up" Alarm clock / Analogue Radio, the manual is needed.
I can never remember how to store stations on my AM/FM Panasonic HiFi either. Nice motorised real volume control for remote.

[Pat Pending]

Thanks Mike, it looks to me that the 65C is similar to the "B" except for an extra range. These things were certainly built in the days when there was an assumption of commonsense, the front panel mounted mains voltage selector is exposed enough to give careless fingers a nip for instance! 

Cheers,
Andy.

[Mike Watterson]

Yes, I think otherwise practically identical. Yes, the mains taps look scary, but I think you'd have to poke a screwdriver in. Perhaps Plastic blanking plate held on by the screw?
But think what pre-BS1363 mains sockets where like, the 5A and 15A both bigger and no shutter originally!
Also up to 1970 it was still common to see people with a Y bayonet adaptor and plugging in some random thing along with light bulb.
Some asked me the other day why when he was growing up so many radios where on a high shelf in Rural Ireland (I didn't know for sure not having encountered Rural Ireland till about 1974 and only modernised cottage in N.I. in 1966 approx). I asked did he remember seeing radios plugged into light sockets. I said I'd read that many rural properties retro-fitted under Rural Electrification in 1920s & 1930s only had one or two plug sockets fitted in the whole place, usually the Continental type, not UK as Siemens was doing the work. That connector (larger than the smaller "Euro connector" which isn't legal, it has to have a screwed on UK adapter/cover in Retail) is still used and Legal, as are the 5A UK type as well as the regular UK plugs. Chinese sellers often assume Ireland uses the two sizes of European plug. South Africa still uses the old UK styles 2A, 5A, 15A, but Kenya, Hong Kong and Malta also adopted the rectangular fused 13A UK plug.

[ppppenguin]

South Africa only uses 15A sockets. India uses 5A.

[Pat Pending]

Thanks for the replies, Jeffrey, Mike, I'm not so old (let's say comfortably graveyard side of fifty) However I grew up in a house with just a fifteen amp socket in the kitchen and a five amp in the "front" room all connected with rubber cables, grandma used to run her new fangled electric flat iron and toaster from the twin light socket in the kitchen! Ah memories!

The plug on the signal generator is the living end of unsafe though, it's a two pin with a screw on top and no cord grip.  

[Cardigan]

India uses 15A plugs - I have some given to me by a friend after he did a job out there. They're not particularly nice examples of the art; give me an interlocking round-body 15A 'Crabtree' any day.

[Cardigan]

The plug on the signal generator is the living end of unsafe though, it's a two pin with a screw on top and no cord grip.  

They do have a cord grip (of sorts, anyway) - it's the same as that used in a BC lampholder. In the picture you posted, it's not been wired properly. Those 'Clix' plugs are fine, if you wire them correctly! No worse than old light switches where the top cover just screwed on to a thread around the dolly.