Ratelco PS 8/9 Power Supplies

[Dawn]

I'm curious how many of you are familiar with the Ratelco PS 8/9 series power supplies? I've never known them be found outside the communications sector where they were as common as a Simpson 260 VOM or a Bird 43 wattmeter. These power supplies were overbuilt beasts and rarely if ever failed they were so dependable. They were an early PWM supply that originally dated back to the mid 60's and continued well into the early 2000's when the company was sold and fragmented. The supply was capable of 0-15 or up to 40V in two ranges on the PS9 and up to 40 amps continuous duty. They had a detachable head that allowed the controls to be placed at bench level while the monster sat on the floor or bottom shelf. It had a current preset control and full analog metering of both V/A. The head was pretty flexible in it's design that over the years there were a few companies that made an accessory head. One of note that was very small one like a mobile radio control head that had a DVM for the volts and edgewise meter for the current and a switch with voltage presets in addition to the variable voltage control. Motorola sort of copied the supply in a bench top version that took up a lot of bench space and I think is still made today with some minor improvements. The high current outputs were giant banana jacks. Ratelco made a lot of different power supplies, power conditioning systems, and UPS systems for various specific industries. To my knowledge, only these two supplies were sold strictly to communications manufacturers and shops and for a while re-branded by Motorola until they copied it. They made 220/240V versions, so these must have been exported. I'm wondering how many of you seen these outside the states as well.

Here's an image on one on the 'bay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ratelco-2079B-DC-Power-Supply-Untested-/190524756020?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c5c291034