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YES, there's still even more cool crap that followed me home from Dallas last week.

This item is definitely a unique addition to my collection, whether or not I ever actually manage to make it DO anything...



The first thing I did with it was to thoroughly examine it, taking lots of pics for y'all along the way.
One of the indicator sockets had broken wires (easily repaired) and a couple more have broken internal contacts for the (old 'telephone style' push-in incandescent) bulbs themselves. (maybe repairable, I haven't tried yet) Once the wires were fixed, I checked all the extant bulbs with a meter and reinstalled them, coming up with enough to fill all the (good) sockets once I added a few more bulbs I had on hand already.



At this point, I went ahead and plugged it up (to AC power only) to see what (if anything) it'd do. Got the pilot light (at least) and a couple seemingly random indicator lites, and while trying various switches and knobs I eventually got its little digital display to count down (something, according to the thumbwheel switch setting?) and the SYNC light to flash everytime it started that over again -- but that was about it. Paused here, and populated its "SIGNAL MATRIX BOARD" with the little jumper wires that came with it, to see if that would make a difference. The matrix board consists of rows of little pins, all labeled and seemingly to be able to be "programmed" (via the jumper wires) to assign the various indicators to whatever output functions a theoretical controller would provide. Powered it up again -- no appreciable change.



So since its main 'controller cable' appears (?) to be a standard NEMA 'A' cable (the 2nd being for a conflict monitor device??)

I plugged it into a handy Multisonics controller (whoops, I'm getting ahead of myself with pictures of new stuff from TX) and got a slightly different response, in that several more (random?) indicators came on, including one that likes to be flashing.


BUT, that's the best I've managed to get out of it yet. Not at all sure yet where to go with it next -- I still have MANY more questions than answers about it, not the least of which is what the actual function of many (most?) of all its knobs and buttons is supposed to be...


I also tried plugging it into one of my GammaTronix controllers, just to see if anything different would happen than with the Multisonics. The short answer to that question is "not much different", although it did seem to make nearly all the LED indicators on the GammaTronix light up all together... ...not being certain if I liked THAT situation at all, I didn't leave it on or play with it very much, hopefully to avoid inadvertently injuring my GT...

ANYWAY, there's where it stands for now. The rest of the pics are here:
http://s1185.photobucket.com/user/BigTb ... t=3&page=1

Does ANYBODY gots any more 'clues' for me??

My guess is that this is a tester for a solid state Pretimed controller...popular in the early 80s as an alternative to the NEMA TS1 actuated controller. The fact that the tester includes cycle generator, four activations (which could be used to call but not extend a movement), and other features that appear to be SSPT related helps confirm this.

I think the LC 40 was a Crouse Hinds SSPT, replacing the earlier SP 40. The 40 came from the number of available outputs that could be used for signal indications. Suitcase testers were often third party manufactured, Mitchell and Setcon made a few models.

LC 40 is the controller it's built for. I can look at one at the shop and get some info on the pin jumpering. You want to be careful because the cycle, split and offset inputs are AC+. More to come.

I looked at the shop and it won't work well with NEMA. The SP-40 and LC 40 are interval controllers that follow a lot of the mechanical specs. They have 40 output circuits, 24 on the "A" harness and 16 on the smaller "B" harness. Sadly some of the NEMA phase outputs are on pins that are inputs on these controllers and thus won't show up on the display. I have scanned the SP-40 manual (should be in the archive), part 1 page 22 has the pinout.

These were marketed to replace the mechanicals so the controllers accept 120VAC inputs for cycle and split selection. If the tester tries to do that to a NEMA controller it will take out the input circuits.

The controllers are sort of like a mechanical with 40 cams having 24 segments. Neat thing with these is they can skip around on the cam using the actuation inputs. In some cases these work better than NEMA.

THANK YOU SO MUCH Joe and Pete, for the great (if somewhat disappointing) info about this thing. Looks like my thoughts of being able to use it to 'demonstrate' a controller(s) are pretty much shot to h*ll, at least as I'd hoped, since none of 'em in my herd are anything approaching the SP40/LC40 at the sound of it. At least I didn't go off and order a whole bunch of new bulbs/etc for it in the meantime... Still will be interesting to read/learn more about it, anyways!

I suppose the next logical question is: Does anybody actually HAVE one of these SSPT controllers?? (either 'to spare', or 'could actually use this tester'...?) They DO sound like they'd be fun machines...