RIP Ron Barns Estate Test Equipment Liquidation

[jonwilhelmjr]

"Prozone Water Products Inc., founded by physicist Ron Barnes in 1977, provides unique solutions to purification requirements of fluids, air and surfaces. Pioneers of Ozone, Germicidal UV-C, and Advanced Oxidation Process technologies, Prozone’s expertise is designing safe and efficient methods for industrial and commercial water treatment. Specializing in partnering with industry leaders to solve diverse sanitation and purification problems, Prozone is the trusted authority.  Prozone has manufactured and supplied over a million purification systems throughout the world for point-of-use drinking water, cistern and well water systems, aquatics systems, plant, fruit, and vegetable processing systems, fisheries, hatcheries, cooling towers, recreational water, and waste and sewage water treatment."
Please read about Ron with the below link.
https://www.prozoneint.com/company-information/

I cherish the opportunity I had to work for Ron as an Electrical engineer. Ron was a very successful physicist, Optics Engineer, Electrical Engineer, and chemist. Ron has contributed so much to the technology we have now. The story I value is how he is a co-inventor of the CD/DVD.

In his time of passing I have been given the opportunity to find a home for all the test equipment he has collected over the years. All of these items are older than I am and will need help identifying if the equipment is worth my time to keep for any reason or recycle as necessary.

Here are a few photos to get the thread started. [ Specified attachment is not available ] [ Specified attachment is not available ] [ Specified attachment is not available ]

[james_s]

If you don't know what you have and have no idea what any of it is worth, your best bet is to list it on ebay with starting bids chosen so that you don't lose money on the transaction once you factor in the fees and let it sell for whatever it sells for. You could post a complete list here and let people make offers, or search ebay for sold items and you might get some traction that way. Without a list of items or a bunch more pictures there isn't much to talk about. A pile of old test equipment could be anything, it's possible there are some real gems in there but it could also be a bunch of old junk. I don't think the microvoltmeter pictured is worth much but it's too nice to just recycle.

[jonwilhelmjr]

heres another

[jonwilhelmjr]

oscilloscope

[jonwilhelmjr]

Last one for the next few days

[jonwilhelmjr]

Because Ron really liked his mercury tube lamps he had plenty of high voltage power supplies, so i will be grabbing those as soon as i can.

there are reels of diodes of some unknown age

[bdunham7]

You're in the right place, but it doesn't look promising so far.  Please take the time to take good photos and make sure the nameplate, etc are visible.  From what I see so far, the Fluke 883A may be of some interest to somebody but not at very much money, but the others are pretty unlikely to be claimed.  The chart recorder is of historical interest only, the oscilloscope will likely be parted out for the tubes and the power supply is too heavy to merit shipping.  Unless I'm mistaken and some specific model you've shown, or have yet to show, is particularly sought after, you may not have much there.  But certainly take the time to post photos, we'll certainly look at them.  Perhaps there's a gem or two in there.

[jonwilhelmjr]

Please learn how to post photos the right way up 

I will work on that detail, I really struggled to post the few. The odd part my computer views them the way i took the photos. Can anyone tell me why the forum rotated the photos?

[rsjsouza]

Bookmarked. Good advice all around so far. Hopefully you are successful in the sales.

By the way, is all this located in Huntsville, AL where the company was located? That would help with the decision making in calculating shipping or perhaps local delivery for the heavier items.

[CatalinaWOW]

Posting the location will focus interest for you.  Also, if the location is Huntsville there are enough engineers in the area to make Craigslist posting or even a yard sale viable ways to dispose of equipment.  A yard sale would be posted in Craiglist and possibly the local newspaper want ads and notice to local radio clubs, maker shops and the like.   Your first post isn't terrible as the header for these notices and a photo of the shop/storage room showing general contents would help draw interest.   These local venues will help in disposing of heavy items and may be the only way to dump things like the chart recorder.

[james_s]

I've always thought those old strip chart recorders were cool, but can you even get the paper for them anymore? The consumables are always the problem with stuff like that.

Nothing shown so far that I'd be interested in, none of it would be worth what it would cost to ship it to me. Are there any hamfests in the area? This seems like the sort of thing you might expect to see there. It's also possible some of it could be of interest to a Hollywood prop rental company but there's the location and shipping problem.

I agree that some overall pictures of the lab could be helpful here, someone might spot a gem that didn't even occur to you might be of interest.

[CatalinaWOW]

I've always thought those old strip chart recorders were cool, but can you even get the paper for them anymore? The consumables are always the problem with stuff like that.

Nothing shown so far that I'd be interested in, none of it would be worth what it would cost to ship it to me. Are there any hamfests in the area? This seems like the sort of thing you might expect to see there. It's also possible some of it could be of interest to a Hollywood prop rental company but there's the location and shipping problem.

I agree that some overall pictures of the lab could be helpful here, someone might spot a gem that didn't even occur to you might be of interest.

Paper is still obtainable for all the ones I have tried, but pens are a bigger problem.  The real issue is that for most purposes digitizing the data is better and cheaper.  Also smaller and lighter.  But if you think they are cool enough I have a couple you can have for the cost of shipping.

[med6753]

(Attachment Link) oscilloscope

That's a Tektronix clone....made by either Lavoie or Hikok. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. 

[james_s]

Paper is still obtainable for all the ones I have tried, but pens are a bigger problem.  The real issue is that for most purposes digitizing the data is better and cheaper.  Also smaller and lighter.  But if you think they are cool enough I have a couple you can have for the cost of shipping.

I appreciate the offer, but space is the primary issue for me at this point, if I had infinite space I would definitely have one in my collection of random gadgets. I agree that digitizing the data is cheaper and better by almost every measure except the cool factor.

[james_s]

Because Ron really liked his mercury tube lamps he had plenty of high voltage power supplies, so i will be grabbing those as soon as i can.

there are reels of diodes of some unknown age

What kind of mercury tube lamps? I collect unusual lamps, that actually might be something I'd be interested in.

[jonwilhelmjr]

I'm not sure what this is.

[jonwilhelmjr]

I'm sorry for the picture I took the photo in portrait and I think that's why its rotated.

[jonwilhelmjr]

I got a boot of loot

[jonwilhelmjr]

This has really nice nixy tubes

[Andrew_Debbie]

I'm not sure what this is.

That is a time base plug-in for a Tektronix oscilloscope.  Many older Tek scopes are mainframes with plug-ins for vertical and horizontal.    There may be someone here who could use one.

[jonwilhelmjr]

I think this is a power supply

[rsjsouza]

Usually the picture has some information attached to it (called EXIF) that contains lots of information about it, such as location, ISO, exposure and even rotation.

One of the many picture editing software available can rotate this picture for you. I use Irfanview, which is excellent and very cheap (if you want to optionally contribute to its author).

Software:
https://www.irfanview.com/

Rotating:
https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/104337/how-i-can-losslessly-rotate-photos

[jonwilhelmjr]

I think this is a 3 phase inverter

[jonwilhelmjr]

Hipot tester

[jonwilhelmjr]

Because Ron really liked his mercury tube lamps he had plenty of high voltage power supplies, so i will be grabbing those as soon as i can.

there are reels of diodes of some unknown age

What kind of mercury tube lamps? I collect unusual lamps, that actually might be something I'd be interested in.

They are not anything special, and I have not been told I can grab some. Prozone is still in business so they may test and use.