Tungar 6 volt battery charger

[60slover]

Good evening and thanks for letting me join this forum.
I recently bought an old battery charger that was used by the City of Medicine Hat in Alberta Canada. It was used in the 40's and 50's to charge batteries for the fleet of city buses. It has been restored and works I am told.
I am attaching photos and wonder if anyone has used this type of charger. Specifically what I call the PROBE (picture attached).
I'd be interested in talking about this beauty.
Gord

 

[Provincial]

Back then batteries had exposed conductors between cells. It was standard procedure to test each individual cell, and replace only the bad ones. The probe may be for that purpose.

 

[60slover]

Back then batteries had exposed conductors between cells. It was standard procedure to test each individual cell, and replace only the bad ones. The probe may be for that purpose.

Thanks for the reply. I'm beginning to think the PROBE may have been one of several used to join batteries in SERIES. The sharp end would be tapped into the connection at the post. I suppose as many as 6 of these would be used if charging a bank of batteries.

 

[humber2]

That is a high capacity unit, can charge six 6volt batteries in series but there is an enormous energy waste running the tungar bulb's filament.

OK when power was a penny a unit and the workshop needed some winter heating.

Not sure if the probe was supplied with this unit as coupling batteries in series needed clips or clamped jumpers

 

[Schenkerguy]

I have that same charger! It was my dad's, not sure when he bought it, maybe sometime in the 50s. He used it right up until he passed away. Unfortunately he "whitewashed" it at some point. Also the plaque is missing from the front.

He said that it was intended as a 6 volt charger, so you have to plug into number two to charge a 12 volt battery. Also he never went higher than the medium setting.

He used it for decades (he was an electrician in the air force), up until he loaned it to a neighbor who hooked up the polarity wrong and blew the tungar bulb, which he was very upset about. Then some electronics person put in a modern solid state device where the bulb used to go and it worked again. It's just been sitting on my shelf for about 15 years as a memorial now.