aleksandro: Welded copper wiring
? aleksandro: Welded copper wiring
Fellow Radiophiles:
Robert Lozier (kd4hsh) is one of the foremost radio restorers and collectors in America. The quality of his restorations even extends to very accurate reconstructions. I have seen some of his extraordinary work at american antique radio meetings.
Robert asked me to post the following inquiry.
Regards,
-Joe
Hello,
I am trying to find any information on how and why welded copper connections were made inside an Iskra 53 ( Искра 53 ) four tube broadcast receiver made at the Aleksandrov Radio Works. The particular receiver I have was assembled in 1958.
This is an assembly technique that I think is unknown to amateur historians of vintage radios here in the USA. (I have been collecting vintage broadcast receivers since 1967 and this is my first discovery of the method.)
I plan to exhibit this radio with my TGK-3 thermoelectric generator at vintage radio conferences here and consider any information about the making of these welded connections of great importance. I would like to know what kind of tools were used (I presume it was some sort of hand held electric arc tool.) And also why the connections were welded and not simply made with tin/lead solder? Any photos would be very much appreciated.
If you do not have any direct information, is it possible that you could post a query on Russian or former USSR bulletin boards for vintage radio enthusiasts? I have no skills in Slavic languages but do know how to use Google Translate and to perform OCR on documents. So hopefully I would not have to burden you with translations.
Any assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated.Yours,
Robert
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Welded wiring in German sets also
Welded wiring also can be found in German radio sets after WW2 when tin was rare.
Examples of this type can be found in sets from AEG, Telefunken or Siemens.
A description in German is given in "Löten oder Schweißen" including the schematic of a welding apparatus, and an example of welded connections.
Regards,
Dietmar
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Welding is unusual in Soviet radio?
Robert Lozier ask me to post the following response.
Many thanks to Dietmar Rudolph for the references to German development of the welding technique to interconnect circuits in radio devices. It is clear that the Germans of those times did not have domestic resources from which to extract tin and it makes perfect sense that they would have had a strong incentive to develop alternative practical methods. I suspect that use of the equipment would have required a greater level of skill from the assemblers and there would obviously be undesirable complications for repair in production or even more so in the field.
So now all that remains is to understand why this particular Russian radio works was using the technique for a broadcast receiver in 1958? I have a few other USSR manufactured broadcast receivers of the 1950s that appear to use conventional tin/lead solder for connections; and I have had a few USA collectors tell me that they have not seen the technique in their USSR radios. A 1969 US Geological Survey analysis of world mineral resources existing in commercial quantities indicates that the USSR was not considered an importer of tin and was thought to have adequate supplies especially in Siberia. So apparently they should have been able to supply adequate quantities to their domestic radio production.
I have been told that some "Russian" military radios of the 1950s are known to have welded connections. I can speculate that such a technique may have its advantages in high temperature or maybe high mechanical stress situations encountered in military operations or maybe aerospace. I can further speculate that this particular radio works, that has been described as making military and other specialized electrical equipment as well, may have seen the assembly of this broadcast receiver as a very good opportunity for assemblers to improve their skills with the welding technique without doing significant damage to high priority projects.
I guess only technology historians/enthusiasts of the former USSR could verify or deny such a speculation.
It certainly would be a great thing to know....
Again thanks for advancing this inquiry.
All the best,
Robert
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