Part 1 of 2 fixing a mercury wheel barometer
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Please read this stuff.. In the two videos (see links below) I show you how successfully repaired a mercury wheel barometer. When the barometer arrived it had a number of faults on it, the indicating hand and the setting hand fouled one another, there were several airlocks in the mercury column, some of the mercury was lost and the float was thoroughly jammed in the lower chamber. I know there are kits that you can buy to help fix these things but it arrive on Christmas eve and there was no way to get any special tools and being an impatient sort of a guy I decided to use what I had to hand. Unfortunately I forgot to put the close up lens on for part of my work but I've included the sequence as its part of the process I went through. I do take chances and I'm not saying that this is how it should be done it's simply a record of how I chose to overcome the problem that I was faced with. The barometer is working perfectly well and confirms the readings from the local Metrological Office that is only a few hindered yards away from our home. There are safety issues with mercury so please seek for advices elsewhere.
Again, I'm not saying what I do is right; I couldn't find any videos that dealt with these problems so I made these videos to show how I chose to deal with the problems.
Thanks for watching.
Kind Regards ... Andy
Here's a link to part 1 (this video) • Part 1 of 2 fixing a m...
Here's a link to part 2 • Part 2 of 2 fixing a ...
Here's a link to a little introductory video on the same topic • Barometer...A quick lo...
This is a link to an Aneroid barometer that I fixed • Aneroid Barometer repair - Наука та технологія
thank you for posting this video. I found it very fascinating. I bought a small banjo style aneroid barometer a couple of years ago and have been fascinated with them ever since.
Hey, I can remember seeing fish in the canals around Birmingham, I used to play along the canal behind Birmingham University and guys would go fishing there, and at Cannon Hill Park. I think now you could use the water from the canal as a weapon of mass destruction, but no, never been fishing.
Kind Regards ... Andy
Thanks for the important video showing how to re-unite gaps in a mercury wheel barometer. I have one little correction and that is that the gaps are not air gaps. The gaps are not filled with air. How did air create a gap when there is no way for air to enter and create a gap? The gaps are actually vacuum gaps. The only way to remove air is with a vacuum pump. How the gaps were produced I cannot tell. I have two English wheel barometers with mercury gaps. I will use the technique you have devised to attempt to repair the mercury column. Thank you for your work in this area of barometer repair. As to the danger of mercury, when I was a child if a mercury fever thermometer was broken we would collect the mercury, play with it in our hands, use it to coat copper pennies and turn them "silver", etc. Prolonged and routine to exposure mercury vapor is a problem, but as a child I learned much about the properties of mercury from incidental situations.
Thanks for the reply Andy , that's saved me time and effort trying to remove a vacuum . Regards
Hi Dennis, these switched, the bigger ones, are from old Delapena induction heaters, they were used in the control circuits mounted on relay mechanisms. I don’t think they were particularly high current but I think they would handle DC as the mercury doesn’t oxidise and they have a wide degree of separation when open circuit.
All the best ... Andy
Good luck on repairs, the last time i seen mercury was old switches they were used for high currant beacuse when contact was made it was never in same place like a relay
Dennis
Wis
I just attached a vacuumpump to the open end and started pumping. All the mercury got to the bottom in the chamber. Then I stopped the pump. By leaking, air got in again, not in the tube, but on top of the chamber. Maybe i got no perfect vacuum, but it was simple to do and good enough for our purpose. The whole repair took me only 10 minutes.
Hi, thanks for the tip. I know that mercury will amalgamate with gold, if you get it on a gold ring it’s the very devil to shift.
All the best ... Andy
Easy way to get the beads out is a small piece of bare copper wire with the end formed into a small loop, it amalgamates with the mercury and allows you to pick up the droplets and deposit them in a small glass bottle. When finished cut off the contaminated tip and wrap in a plastic bag.
I excluded all of the air from the tube but then as you tip the barometer the right way up so the mercury falls and pulls a vacuum at the top of the tube so it looks like there is air at the top but it’s a vacuum. It’s the ‘suck’ of that vacuum at the top of the tube that holds up the mercury and stops it all running out of the top of the ‘U’ bend at the bottom of the tube. So the mercury measures the difference in the 'suck' (vacuum) at the top and the atmospheric pressure.
Kind regards.. Andy
Thanks for the input
Kind Regards ... Andy
Hi Andy ,,very interesting did you end up with air at the top off the bulb. Regards
Imagine we put a one million cubic foot open box in sea and want to lift it when it become totally submerged in water so how much water it lift according to atmospheric pressure ?
Hi Andy have you removed your ww2 shell fuse video as I can't seem to be able to fine it
Hi there, no the video is still in place here's the link to it.ua-cam.com/video/JIHUc0ThG10I/v-deo.htmlt's funny but of all my videos (>300 of them) the one about the fusehas some 61 thumbs down where as most otheres only have one thumbs down. It looks like I must have upset someone as they went through each video and gave me a thumbs down on each video, still not too bad concidering over 2,000,000 hits on the channel.All the best . . . Andy