Hello everyone,
I came across this at an estate sale. With some limited research, it seems like it might have something to do with guided missiles or satellite trajectories. The writing says: Reeves Resolver RS600N. Does anyone have any knowledge about what this is? I've enclosed a pic...

 

My guess,it is a general purpose, analog computing element that puts out sine and cosine functions for the angle shown on the dials in degrees (two dials, coarse and fine). This is the "resolver" function. Probably pre-satellite but possibly used for missile trajectories. Circa 1950?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolver_(electrical)

 

It is a selsyn type of device, but sine-cosine instead of three phase. This particular one appears to have been used for calibrating systems. Resolvers are used for sensing angles of shaft position and converting that to an electrical signal. This one evidently has a rotor with two windings, the four terminals with "R", and the standard dual stator windings, the 4 "S" terminals. Given that the rotor and has dual windings ths unit may also be able to serve as a differential resolver, a function very similar to differential gearing. These are not guesses, I have read the books on resolvers.

 

Resolvers are typically phase shift devices. Angular displacement from input coil to output coil determined by rotor positioning. As part of a drive system, it could be used for positioning control. Azimuth maybe suggest communications.

 

I designed a digital version of this for the British Navy about 30 years ago. It was used for calibrating radar systems. Resolvers are used to measure the position of the radar antenna. The antenna resolver was disconnected and substituted with the test box, you dialled in an angle and checked that the radar display gave the correct reading.

 

You see usage of resolvers in direct drive mechanical systems that need very precise positioning. The encoder tells where you are or need to be and the resolver gets you there.

Resolver and encoder direct drive disk spindle inside a e-7 torr vacuum chamber.

https://www.mouser.com/applications/resolver-encoder-motor-control/

 

Based upon the labels on the left side, I would suggest that the device is designed to place an offset of X number of degrees on a larger system. The term for such a device, as we used them, is a differential resolver. A non-differential would only have two connections for the rotor. Reeves made many of the resolvers for the NC (now called CNC) machines I worked with from the mid 1960s to the mid 1990s. At that time, many of the newer machines were starting to beegin using digital encoders for feedback.

 

The one use that I had for a resolver was to feed a music signal into the rotor terminals and have the two stereo windings feed two stereo amplifier channels. with the speakers on opposite sides, spinning the resolver gave a very interesting effect, as not only the volume but the phase went back and forth. And the effect would rive my cat crazy. Probably that is the most unusual application of a resolver you ever came across.

 

Thank you all for the great insight!
Now the $100 question... does it have any value? Would anyone have an interest in it?

 

Thank you all for the great insight!
Now the $100 question... does it have any value? Would anyone have an interest in it?

If you were local to me I would have an interest depending on what you wanted for it. The interest is merely because I like older devices like that between the electrical and mechanics they are just cool. We had a member who came upon an old L&N 8610 mV Potentiometer and like your gizmo in a nice wood finished box. These things were replaced years ago with newer state of the art equipment but their cool factor remains.

Ron