NASA APOLLO Era Fairchild/Systron Donner 7050 Volt Ohm Meters

[lai...@wcoil.com]

I live less than 15 miles from Wapakoneta Ohio the hometown of Neal Armstrong. Big celebrations are going on for the 50th anniversary of the APOLLO 11 moon landing. That got me to thinking about the NASA surplus Nixie Meters I purchased off EBay some years ago. I posted some pictures on the TCA group reflector just a little while ago for those that are interested. I have at least 5 of these units both Fairchild and Systron Donner. All model 7050 Volt Ohm meters. They use a neon lamp for the leading one digit and 3 Nixie tubes. I think NL 841 series. I think Systron Donner was a second source manufacturer. One of them has a date of 8-24-67 written on the power transformer which puts these meters in the APOLLO era at NASA. Tim Laing

Sent from my iPhone

[Jon Jackson]

Could you post a photo here?

On Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 11:52 PM Lai...@wcoil.com <lai...@wcoil.com> wrote:

I live less than 15 miles from Wapakoneta Ohio the hometown of Neal Armstrong. Big celebrations are going on for the 50th anniversary of the APOLLO 11 moon landing. That got me to thinking about the NASA surplus Nixie Meters I purchased off EBay some years ago. I posted some pictures on the TCA group reflector just a little while ago for those that are interested.  I have at least 5 of these units both Fairchild and Systron Donner. All model 7050 Volt Ohm meters. They use a neon lamp for the leading one digit and 3 Nixie tubes. I think NL 841 series.  I think Systron Donner was a second source manufacturer.  One of them has a date of 8-24-67 written on the power transformer which puts these meters in the APOLLO era at NASA.  Tim Laing

Sent from my iPhone

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[gregebert]

I took 2 years of vocational training in electronics while in high school, and several tons of surplus equipment was donated to us. One very intriguing piece had a lot of gauges, with labels like 'Suit Pressure', etc. We always wondered if they were leftovers from the Apollo program. Some pieces had NASA tags. Plenty of nixie tubes; the rackmounted nixie voltmeters using stepper relays were very noisy. And of course a few of those Berkeley universal counters with individual neon bulbs, instead of nixies.

[petehand]

I picked up a Systron Donner model 7004 about 10 years ago, dating from about 1970. I was going to scrap it for the nixies before I realized it was still as accurate as my best modern DVM and had one more digit. But it wasn't NASA - I think the calibration sticker (now lost) said Goodyear. It had the optional battery pack. Inside the case were two 6V lead acid batteries driving a board that delivered 12V AC to a separate winding on the main transformer. I have the manual, but it doesn't say what the nixies are - just "Tube, readout, V0132". The next item is "Socket, readout tube, X0179" so I know they aren't wire ended.

(poor photo - low light)