6 Jul
2001
6 Jul
'01
10:57 p.m.
On Fri, 6 Jul 2001, Tony Duell wrote:
> > optically. It had a car headlamp bulb and a
row of
I can cofirm from practical experience that the Elliot
optical _paper
tape_ reader uses a bulb that looks a lot like a car headlamp bulb. I
don't mean a sealed-beam unit, of course. A single-filament lamp about 1"
in diameter and 2" long, with a flange mounting and a single contact on
the end of the base. 48W IIRC. While I can't confirm that this card reader
used anything similar, I think it's possible.
Yes, indeed. Two peoples separated by a common language. In the US,
"headlamp bulb" MEANS "sealed beam". The US mandated sealed beams.
At
the time, it was as hard to get a non-sealed beam headlamp as it was to
find an acetylene lamp (which would be as likely to be what was referred
to when saying "headlamp".)
Once found, a non-sealed beam bulb would be a fine choice for such a
device. BTW, relatively recently non-sealed beam halogen units became
legal, finally.
In the UK, the typical taillight bulb is 5W. It's
often part of a
twin-filament bulb, 5W tail light, 21W brake light.
There's also a single-filament 21W bulb used for the turn signal. That's
the bulb that was commonly used in later optical paper tape readers in
the UK.
In the US, in typical sloppiness of language, the automotive parts
industry lumps together under the heading "taillight": brake light, turn
signal, backup light, and RUNNING light (which is what y'all more
accurately call "taillight".) Even the FRONT turn signal bulbs are
grouped as "taillights".
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com