OH-MY-GOD!!!!!!
Those are EARLY T-17 units with the curved reflectors! This is a freaking GOLD MINE of F90T17's! I would $H1T myself in that place!
In Philly,too, not all the far from me! I am DROOLIN'! I'll wager a bet that every darn ONE of these still work----the lower OCV of these ballasts makes them less prone to damage from moisture. Some of these may even have the simple choke 240 volt series sequence start ballast that runs the 2 lamps in series, using thermal starters! I bet alot of these have thermal starters, and some MAY have MAZDA brassenders, as often during the day they kept units off and the old lamps never failed. I used to work in a shirt factory in Cohoes, NY, so I know alot about these old mills, plus all out demo jobs. This shirt factory I worked in netted my 3 1939 Hygrade-Sylvania HF-100 units, as well as my mint 2 amp F96T8 unit from 1947, 100% original, and a few others! The place was lit by 8' sectional, in continuous rows of 3 or 4 sections each, over the machines exactly like these T-17's, but in continupus rows to the center main aisle, with machines on each side, and these were all WW2 era units with shallow channels and external TULAMP preheat ballasts, and I had them all singing like my 1963 Hammond C-3 organ with a Leslie 22-R speaker! I mean, when I got there they were in a bad state, working poorly, and I got them all working perfectly! Loved every MINUTE of it! I tried to get all the fixtures when the mill was rehabbed into apartments several years ago, but the greedy owner HAD to scrap them for the meager metal content! I was pissed on 1,000 levels believe me! By the way, I have several of the industrial sewing machines, I took when the shirt factory closed down in 1995, out in shed out back. I picked the best ones. They are mostly 208-240 volt 3 phase. I have just 2 120 volt single phase clutch motors I took off other machines. They can be had if the price is right. I have a 1980's Singler boot maker machine in my basement that runs off a rare GE type RSA which is a repulsion-induction version of the common type SA split-phase "reverse" motor meaning that the squirrel cage sits still, and the windings, usually stationary, rotate, fed with 120 volts through a pair of radial concentric slip rings and brushes. The reason these SA motors made both by GE and Westinghouse (and GE's Fort Wayne Electric Works---FWEW) was that reversing the layout if the common split-phase squirrel cage induction motor improves power factor! I have a type RSC, I believe is is, or maybe a type KS---clutch motor, on a 1914 Dayton water pump, from FWEW, super rare! It has a bearing between the armature rotor and shaft, with a friction clutch like a car with a standard transmission has, that is engaged when the centrifugal mechanism operates to cut out the starting winding, simultaneously clutching the rotor to the shaft and starting the load. This is to compensate for the poor starting torque these motors possess, using speed and inertia of the rotor as it approaches full speed, to take up hard to start loads. These clutch motors are pretty far and few between these days, and are easy to identify----if the shaft seems to "slip" in the rotor when you turn the shaft, it's a gem! A real clutch motor! My FWEW is an early open model, 1/6 HP if I remember right, and one of a literal handful still existing! Anyway, a little motor info thrown in there as well for good measure! Man, I would give my left arm to go through this place with m permission to salvage those lights etc! In PA, people leave stuff alone--old buildings stay like this for decades. Here in NY, that place would be wrecked by vandals and anything metal light enough to be carried out by 2 men--sewing machines etc, would have been stolen for scrap metal! I would bet there is a stash of NOS lamps, ballasts and starters for these magnificent fixtures, and I would hoard them! Since these darn lamps are so hard to get, I'd be on them like a fly on fresh dog excrement! GOD--this is a beautiful scent to my eyes---I have seen these images so many times in the mills we demoed, but in hindsight, I wish we had saved and rehabbed them. The New World Order and the Globalist SCUM trying to take us over is why you see these sad scenes. It is starkly beautiful, but also makes me want to cry. Later, Rick "C-6" D!
