That's pretty cool. I didn't know they had supplies like that. I think you qualify as an official Power Designs addict at this point. How many of these things do you have now?
Fortunately, space constraints on my lab bench limit me from acquiring any more
Five…with a sixth on the way!
Honestly, I do plan on reselling most of these. I’m buying broken ones off eBay to fix up and give new homes to, rather than seeing them end up in a scrap yard.
I’m keeping the TW6050D I just posted, plus the 2020B I’ve been working my ass off to fix.
I’d also like to build a sort of oven restoration kit to sell on eBay, so people can modernize the oven and keep them going. But we’ll see how my own attempts go on this 2005.
Life’s been pretty stressful lately due to a family member with some medical issues and my addict cousin staying with me while he gets clean, so working on these at night gives me some “zen” time.
Anyway, I did get the 2020B case repainted, and it came out pretty great I think!
I also snapped a picture of three other cases together (with the original paint) to show the slight color variations:
It’s interesting to note that the 2005A is about 0.5” longer than the 2005; so they obviously used an entirely different frame. My 1025P was produced in ’67 judging by the caps, while my 2005 has a ’65 date on the oven; meanwhile my 2005A has ’73 stamped on the upper lefthand corner of the from panel’s backside. According to the official 2005 schematics, it would have entered production in ’65; the 2005A schematics are dated ’69 so that would most likely mean early 1970 for the first production run. I can’t find schematics for the 1025P, but it’s constructed like the 2005 (all point to point wiring) so I’d say 1967 is a good bet for initial production. Why am I saying all this? Well, if you look at the 2005’s top cover, you’ll notice it only has a couple of vent slots, meanwhile the 1025P has the hole pattern they used for all the other precision supplies. However, the 1025P and 2005 both have the circular indents, which were intended for stacking the supplies onto of one another; the 2005A omits this. Why?
Well the 2005 and 1025P both included circular rubber feet that simply screwed into the bottom covers, the 2005A on the other hand included molded plastic feet with a metal tilting bail; this setup appears to have been used on all of the following precision supplies (including my 2020B).
Speaking of the bottoms of these supplies, one final curious point: The 2005 and 2005A both used non-painted metal bottom panels, however, the 1025P (which chronological came in-between the two aforementioned supplies) had a painted metal bottom panel, with the same normal hole pattern as the top. This was also the way all future supplies would be constructed, except the 2005A.
I know none of this matters, but for some reason Power Designs really fascinates me. I wish I could find someone who worked at the company for a long time to interview. Companies that produced lab equipment in the 1960’s were constantly popping up
and going out of business. There’s a few great articles about multimeters that talk about it. The history of calculators from about 1950 to 1990 is very interesting as well. The ’70s saw an explosion in the production of calculators; it went from huge mechanical desktop adding machines, to solid state, to pocket calculators to personal computers. Okay, I’m rambling now, sorry.