What is this stuff?
December 9, 2012 7:14 PM   Subscribe

What is this stuff? I recently started helping a family member go through their garage to sell stuff via eBay, and came across these two items...

One appears to be a heater or fan gun of some sort. (I haven't plugged it in yet to see what happens).

The second is an electronic control panel that appears to attach to a computer via cables, with nobs and dials labeled "motor," "coarse pot" and "fine pot."

Any ideas what this stuff does?
posted by Unsomnambulist to Technology (10 answers total)
 
The first appears to be a heat gun - the company also make soldering irons.

I believe the second item is a potentiometer.
posted by Tanizaki at 7:19 PM on December 9, 2012


The heater gun looking thing looks to be made by "Weller" which makes soldering irons and stuff like that. It may be a dedicated little heater gun made to heat shrink tubing, which is commonly used to cover up soldered connections. You could probably google the model number and find something.

The box looks like a motor speed controller or possibly something to set the position of a servo motor, but I'm not sure.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:20 PM on December 9, 2012 [1 favorite]


Most likely a controller for a large old-school satellite dish.
posted by ShutterBun at 7:21 PM on December 9, 2012


The device in the last three photos is definitely a Weller heat gun (I think the Weller 6966C is similar).
posted by RichardP at 7:23 PM on December 9, 2012


Seconding ShutterBun, although I was thinking rooftop tv antenna.
posted by box at 7:28 PM on December 9, 2012


The box looks like an antenna rotator - but maybe for amateur radio.
posted by scruss at 7:37 PM on December 9, 2012


The weller heat gun is self explanatory. It is unusual in the fact that the exit nozzle is small. It may be a rework tool for simple, manual surface mount parts.

The other thing is a purpose-built test jig. It was custom made to manipulate another piece of electronics via the subminiature D connector at the top of the box. What that item is is anyone's guess, but it had a motor, and two potentiometer inputs... Coarse and fine. The motor looks like it may be a stepper motor and the test points are for a scope probe, probably.

These things are built and disposed frequently in electronic design and this workmanship looks fairly professional as opposed to ham radio type. Probably the property of a tech who was proud of his obsolete work and who kept it. No value.

Products live in their documentation, i often say, and this is why. It should sport an id label. ( most of my stuff like this does. All stuff like this in a professional environment does. Tht is not to say all companies do it, but the pros do. )
posted by FauxScot at 8:38 PM on December 9, 2012 [1 favorite]


The heat gun is used for heatshrink tubing and such- it puts out a fairly high temperature but a low volume of air. I use one just like it. Not hot enough for surface mount parts, though.
I'd agree with FauxScot about the other one. More than likely a stepper motor was involved- the four 27 ohm resistors are typical.
posted by drhydro at 8:51 PM on December 9, 2012


I think the panel is a control for a satellite antenna - the motor settings control the tracking motor, and the coarse and fine potentiometer settings are for tuning the antenna's reception.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:30 AM on December 10, 2012


The box is definitely for controlling some sort of stepper motor. Antenna rotator control sounds like a reasonable guess, if so then the potentiometers in the box may be for impedance matching. I would guess it was kit built. Unless you can find what it plugs in to I doubt it would be worth much of anything, probably not worth much even then.
posted by ckape at 2:19 PM on December 10, 2012


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