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| My Teletype Model 12 was owned previously by a ham who had extensively rewired
the table upon which the machine sits. He apparently had it working with a vacuum tube keyer to
reduce the extensive RFI that this machine generates with its six printing magnets that each draw about
300 ma at 150 volts -- aka lots of sparks! And as one of my first electronics teachers noted about
anything that generates sparks, "Remember the first radio..." However, I don't have
the vacuum tube keyer. In short, this table is in serious need of attention for the machine
to operate. In the shot above one can easily see the huge shielded cables that went to the outboard
keyer, along with some sort of switching with a relay in the front part of the photo. Who
knows what all this did. It's got to go, especially after I discovered that all the motor
wiring on this thing was done with 20-gauge wire!! Out, out! |
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| After about an hour's worth of work, I have removed just about all of the old wiring
from the table. However in doing this and working "up close and personal" with the table,
I can see that it really should be repainted. Any reference materials that I have seen for the Model
12 shows it with a black table and cover. My example is all in gray, though I can see original gloss
black (black japan?) in the area under the contact blocks in the center of the table, telling me that perhaps
this was the original color of my machine, too. |
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| Above is a shot of the Model 12 as it exists at the moment. I need now to
think about what I am going to do about repainting the steel plate base of the machine. Also I am
thinking about perhaps building a transistorized keyer for the machine to keep the RFI down. Check
back periodically to see if the project has gotten any further. I would like to keep a
picture gallery and journal going here of the progress. |