C
Clive Mitchell
It would appear that in the heady days of valves and smoke, that
elevators had a brief love affair with cold cathode touch buttons.
These were basically neon devices that were held at just under their
strike voltage with a DC supply that also had AC referenced to earth so
when a finger was placed on the end of the tube (via a spring and
plastic disk) it would cause the tube to fire and not only call the
elevator, but illuminate too.
Once the elevator had answered the call it would reset the button by
biasing it in a manner that interrupted the discharge.
Does anyone have a picture or link to data of one of these interesting
sounding tubes? The veteran elevator engineers refer to them as cold
cathode touch buttons.
elevators had a brief love affair with cold cathode touch buttons.
These were basically neon devices that were held at just under their
strike voltage with a DC supply that also had AC referenced to earth so
when a finger was placed on the end of the tube (via a spring and
plastic disk) it would cause the tube to fire and not only call the
elevator, but illuminate too.
Once the elevator had answered the call it would reset the button by
biasing it in a manner that interrupted the discharge.
Does anyone have a picture or link to data of one of these interesting
sounding tubes? The veteran elevator engineers refer to them as cold
cathode touch buttons.