Leeds And Northrup

Ed?

~No static at all~

:-)

if I can ever beat you to A comment!! (first thing i thought!!) ;-) No Static.........

I believe this was a Norden-Leeds bombsight developed during WW1 to defeat the Japanese homeland in 1944. It's amazing that they left the prototype at WSH all these years. Hey, who the hell knows.

Johnny Mac, I couldn't have said it better myself.

awesome but weirdly creepy.
it looks like a little creature waiting patiently to be found.

sketchyyy!!!!!!

Cool Looking Leeds and Northup. Motts want was this for.

Maybe someone can enlarge the label on the front leg? That might have a manufacture date or other useful information.

I don't think it's a WWII bombsight. If my father were still alive, I could show him the picture and ask for sure, because he was a navigator on bombers in the Pacific from 1943 until the end of the war. Unfortunately he died recently.

A search for Leeds and Northrup shows that the company made resistors, milivolt pontentiometers (I have NO idea what those are!), and other similar types of equipment. I couldn't find any pictures of anything that looked even remotely similar to this item, however.

Apparently changes in the market (what's new?) led to Leeds and Northrup becoming part of General Signal some years back, and subsequently, Leeds and Northrup was "sold off piecemeal, mostly to its nemesis, Honeywell."

I was directed to a company called Process Instruments in Pittsburgh which provides "calibration and repair services" and advertises itself as "legacy Leeds and Northrup, Honeywell and Hagan Support." There is another company in Forest Hill, MD that repairs Leeds and Northrup equipment.

So...now we know all that, and we still have no idea of what this is. Maybe we could send a copy of this picture to one of those repair companies to see if they know what it is.

To me it looks like a circuit board holder. You clip a circuit board either in between or into the tabs on the top to hold it still and closer to eye level when you work on it. This would make sense if it was near the other electronics stuff, and like dme said, the company made electronic components.

I think Snuggs is right. Nothing enigmatic about this device, and considering Leeds & Northrup's ongoing development (at the time) of industrial and commercial use electronics, this could have been a testing or R & D facility for their products...


...or not. Who really knows, right?

I worked for L&N for 38 years in Australia. I don't think this device is a board holder as printed circuit boards did not exist in this era. My guess it it is probably a mirror holder, a part of a light spot galvanometer.
Col Higgins Nov 25 2009