Edward
Weston Born: May 9, 1850, Died: Aug. 20, 1936, Montclair, N.J.
U.S.
A.
British-born American electrical engineer and industrialist who
revolutionized the Electro-plating industry, founded the Weston
Electrical Instrument Company. A prolific inventor who held 334
patents, Edward Weston helped revolutionize the measurement of
electricity. In 1886 he developed a practical precision, direct
reading, portable instrument to accurately measure electrical
current, a device which became the basis for the voltmeter,
ammeter and watt meter. Oh, and in his spare time, he produced the
world's best exposure meters!
Edward
Weston was born in the rather dull town of Oswestry, Shropshire
(England), in 1850 and brought up in nearby Wales. His father was
an unsuccessful merchant, and mother was a novelist, as well as a
magazine writer - perhaps that is why his manufacturing plant
eventually went bust but his manuals were so good. Edward Weston
attended the Adams School. He studied medicine at the insistence
of his parents and began his career as apprentice to a local
physician where he developed an interest in chemistry After
receiving his medical diploma in 1870, he went to New York City,
at the age of 20 where he soon found a job in the electroplating
industry. He started making improvements and during the first
eighteen months in America, he is described as "revolutionizing
the Electro-plating industry". He realized that a constant
source of current was required for quality plating, and the
batteries used at the time were not sufficient for the job (not a
lot changed there then).
 
After
the first company he worked for went out of business, Weston had a
short career as a photographer, but returned to the plating
industry in 1872 after realising that there was only room for one
photographer called Edward Weston. He then opened a business in
partnership with one George G. Harris, the surprisingly named
Harris & Weston Electroplating Co. He patented the
nickel-plating anode here in 1875 and then developed his first
dynamo for electroplating - a machine described as being rational
in it's construction, whatever that may mean. Whatever it means
though, it apparently raised the efficiency of dynamos from just
over 45% to over 90% in 1875..
Fed
up by 1875 with electroplating, he moved to New Jersey, in
business for himself making dynamos, called with abounding
creativity The. Weston Dynamo Electric Machine Company.
Frustration with inadequate electricity supplies led to an
obsession with power generation (better be frustrated with that
than some other things though). In 1876 he patented a design for a
dc generator. One of Weston's dynamos, running electric arc lamps,
was shown at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876,
but it received surprisingly little attention. Shortly after this,
Weston was contacted by Frederick Stevens, who offered Weston the
opportunity to set up a dynamo division of his Steven, Roberts &
Havell company. In 1877 the division was organized as a separate
company, the Weston Dynamo Machine Company, in Newark, New Jersey,
- the first US factory of it's kind. To expand the market, he
began making generators for arc lighting.
Inevitably,
innovations and improvements to the lamps themselves followed and,
due to its success, the company changed its name to the Weston
Electric Light Company, going on to win the contract to illuminate
the new Brooklyn Bridge. At the same time, independent of Edison
and others, Weston was experimenting with incandescent light.
Using his knowledge of chemistry, electricity and mechanical
engineering he designed a carbon filament of unprecedented
uniformity and longevity, subsequently used in all incandescent
lights until the introduction of tungsten 25 years later.
From
1875 to 1884, Edward Weston was granted a total of 139 US patents,
yet despite this prodigious output, his best was still to come...
Weston's arc lamp Weston had first used a carbon arc lamp in his
own shop in 1874, run by his plating dynamo, and he continued to
research lighting equipment. By 1877 he had made many developments
in arc lighting and in 1878 he put an arc light on the Newark Fire
Department's watchtower in the center of town. Publicity from this
led to an order from the city for lighting Military Park, and this
was followed in 1879 by an installation in Boston's Forest Garden.
On
26 September 1882 he was granted a patent on the Tamidine
filament, a carbon material which gave a bulb life of up to 2000
hours, when other materials burned out after only a few hundred
hours. Weston also took out patents on incandescent lamp seals and
many other inventions in the lighting field, and by 1886 had been
granted 186 patents. His electric arc furnaces and incandescant
lamps were as good as Edison's or Swan's, if not better, and his
filaments were used until the tungsten became available.
Since
his early days in electroplating, Weston had been concerned about
the lack of accurate, practical devices for measuring electrical
parameters so in 1887, having withdrawn from the generator and
lamp business, he established a laboratory, and the following year
Weston Electrical Instrument Company began trading and in 1888 he
developed the truly permanent magnet. He also developed two
important alloys, especially for electrical measurement: Constanta
having a negative temperature coefficient; and Manganin, having an
extremely low temperature coefficient, Patents No. 381304 reissue
No. 10994 and Patents No. 381305, reissued No. 10945 in 1888.
In
1888 he developed a practical precision, direct reading, portable
instrument to accurately measure electrical current, a device
which became the basis for the voltmeter, ammeter and watt meter.
The Weston Standard Cell, developed in 1893, was recognized as an
international standard and was used by the National Bureau of
Standards for almost a century to calibrate other meters. His
company, Weston Instruments, produced world famous precision
electrical measuring instruments including volt, amp, watt, ohm,
and HF meters, current /potential transformers and transducers.
Other
Weston contributions include the magnetic speedometer, and the
dashboard ammeter for Harley - Davidson motorcycles. Other items
invented by the prolific Weston included such fascinating items as
electric motors, potential transformers, current transformers, A.C
and D.C. voltmeters, ammeters, wattmeters including polyphase,
ohmmeters, both A.C and D.C laboratory standards, standard cells,
panel meters in hundreds of sizes, shapes and ranges, power factor
meters, control relays, tachometer generators, A.C and D.C.
amplifiers, radio tube (bulb), radio test instruments, insulation
testers, multi-range, multi-purpose industrial circuit test
instruments, mutual conductance electronic radio-tube analyzers,
A.C. industrial test units, A.C clamp ammeters and voltmeters for
powerline works, moisture measuring meters, electrical and
mechanical recorders and controllers, thermometers mercury tube,
thermocouple and bimetal types, hydrometers for all branches of
chemistry, ground detectors, humidity indicators, meggers,
frequency meters, sensitive relays, laboratory standard electrical
measuring instruments, aircraft navigational and engine condition
instruments, including the first-blind landing instrument in 1933,
switchboard instruments, shunts, resistors, D.C. galvano-meters
thermal converters, copper oxide rectifiers, projection
instruments, VU meters, photoelectric cells initally used in
illumination meters, light meters and foot-candle meters.
Instruments
such as the Weston A.C. Voltmeter, Model 155 Weston Electrical
Instrument Corp. Newark N.J.,(c 1926) were used by trained
technical/scientific staff for precision laboratory measurements
of voltage, and as secondary standards for calibrating other
meters. The mirrored scale makes it easier to read the instrument
to a given accuracy by enabling the user to avoid parallax errors.
This particular instrument was specified to be accurate to ±0.5%.
In
1930, Dr. Edward Weston helped found Newark Technical School,
predecessor to New Jersey Institute of Technology, and served on
its Board of Trustees.
Weston
became a U.S. citizen in 1923. In 1932 Dr. Edward Weston received
Lamme Medal "For his achievements in the development of
electrical apparatus, especially in connection with precision
measuring instruments. here are some of his achievements in
chronological order:
1
Applied the dynamo to electroplating (1872).
2
Patented an anode for making malleable plated nickel (1875)
3
Patented the rational construction of dynamos (1876).
4
Patented laminated pole pieces and cores for dynamos, raising
their efficiency from about 45 per cent to 85 per cent (1875).
5
Gave a public exhibition of arc lighting in the United States
(1877).
6
Used the arc light for general lighting purposes (1877)
7
Opened a commercial arc light factory in the United States (1880)
8
Used a soft metal core for arc light carbons (1878).
9
Copperplated the ends of arc light carbons (1878).
10
Used an electric arc furnace industrially in the United States
(1875).
11
Used the dynamo as an electric motor for industrial purposes
(1878)
12
Made a successful homogeneous carbon lamp filament (1885).
13
Cured weak spots in carbon lamp filaments with hydrocarbon
flashing process (1885).
14
Made nitrocellulose into pure fiberless cellulose (1885).
15
Made a truly permanent magnet (1887).
16
Compounded a German Silver alloy containing 30 per cent nickel
(1887).
17
Made a metal having a negative temperature co-efficient (1887).
18
Made a metal having an extremely low temperature co-efficient
(1887).
19
Made an aluminum alloy which could be drawn to very thin tubes
(1887).
20
Used a metal frame for damping the motion of moving coils (1887)
21
Made a commercial, direct-reading electrical measuring instrument
(1888).
22
Used the shunt circuit (1893 - US Patent No. 497,482).
23
Made a stable cell for use as a secondary standard of the volt
(1893).
24
Developed the magnetic drag-type speedometer (1885).
25
Made an ammeter for use with automobile starting batteries (1911).
Now,
let's look at the exposure meter elements of all this history.
At
some point during all this he managed to find the time to see Mrs
Weston and produce a son, Edward Faraday Weston (1878-1971) who's
middle name perpetuated his father's reverence for England's great
Physicist. In 1928/9 Weston and his son began to experiment with
exposure-meters by the use of the Photo-electric cell (the magic
eye), which Weston was producing. The elder Weston was apparently
still a keen Photographer and who saw it as a useful tool. In
1931, Edward Faraday Weston applied for a U.S patent on the first
Weston Exposure meter, which was granted patent No. 2016469 on
October 8, 1935, also an improved version was applied for and
granted U.S patent No. 2.042665 on July 7 th 1936. From 1932 to
around 1967, over 36 varities of Weston Photograhic Exposure
Meters were produced in large quantities and sold throughout the
world, mostly by Photographic dealers or agents, which also
included the Weston film speed ratings, as there were no ASA or
DIN data available at that time.
Here
are some more landmarks:
1888
The first commercial double pivoted moving coil instrument for
electrical measurement
1908
The international conference on Electrical Units and Standards
names the Weston cadmium cell the standard for electromotive
force. The first commercial use of Bakelite
1919
First direct measurement of high frequency radio signals
1921
Steamproof train speedometer
1932
The first exposure meter
1933
Aircraft "blind landing" system
1935
Bi-metal thermometer. The first "electric eye"
Edward
Weston died in 1936, aged 86, with more than 300 patents to his
name. His legacy lives on with the marvellous Weston Meter and in
some pretty dreadfull contamination to the land around his plant
in Newark.
Weston
had two factors which contributed to the success of the meter.
First was a patented method of making the cells. They were coated
and sealed so that they were relatively immune from moisture,
which kills Selenium cells. Weston meters that do not react to
light at all have generally lost this seal due to deterioration.
Secondly was the Weston method of measuring film speeds. While it
had some shortcomings it had the advantage of being based on a
method which gave practical speeds for actual use and it was
independant of any film manufacturer. Previous speed systems such
as the H&D and early Schneiner speeds were both threshold
speeds and capable of considerable manipulation by manufacturers.
Weston's method measured the speed well up on the curve making it
more nearly what one would get in actual practice. (This means
that he was a bit less optimistic about film sensitivity than the
maunfacturers of the day who were notorious for pretending their
films were more sensitive than they really were) A certain Mr
W.N.Goodwin of Weston is usually credited with this system. The
Weston calculator also shows some thought about what the practical
photographer had to deal with. From the first these calculators
had markings on them for determining the scene contrast and the
instructions with the meter told how to do this, a sort of early
zone system. Some older meters incidentally can become non-linear
so can't be corrected by a simple factor like adjusting the film
speed.
Weston's
main US factory was in Newark, NJ. The factory was closed in 1974.
In 1987 there were investigations going on over contamination of
the surrounding land. Sangamo manufactured PCB-containing
electrical capacitors there during 1955-74. Sangamo notified the
US Environmental Protection Agency of its disposal of
approximately 38,700 cubic yards of PCB waste on its plant site
and an undetermined amount in seven satellite dumps, all in the
Twelve-Mile Creek Basin. Solid, sludge, and liquid wastes were
stored or disposed of in piles, landfills, and impoundments. How
nice! Since then Sangamo-Weston has removed over 17,000 cubic
yards of waste from past disposal areas on and off the plant
property. How sad it should all end this way - I'm sure Edward
would be turning in his grave if he knew.
In
1921 The British Sangamo company was founded as a subsidiary of
Sangamo Electric Co of Springfield Illinois USA. It started out
manufacturing electrical meters and time switches. In 1936 British
Sangamo acquired the Weston Electrical Instruments Co of Surbiton
Surrey, which was the UK subsidiary of The Weston Electrical
Instrument Corporation of Newark MJ, and became Sangamo Weston.
With the outbreak od the second world war, Sangamo Weston went
over to manufacturing aircraft instruments and have continued to
do so ever since.
Sangamo
Weston made its meters in the UK at Enfield on the outskirts of
North London and they were distributed by Ilford Ltd, then and
still the supplier of choice for monochrome photographic
materials. This continued until 1980 when Sangamo Weston were
involved in various takeovers and amalgamations being rather
grandly known as Weston Aerospace at one time. Making exposure
meters was probably considered unprofitable by the new owners so
it was left to John Gahagan, a former manager there to set up East
Kilbride Instruments in Scotland to continue manufacture but
without the Weston name. Manufacturing continued there until July
1984 when that company went into liquidation. Sad but familiar
story. Fortunately a white knight in the shape of Tottenham-based
Megatron, bought the
parts stocks and took over manufacturing. Strangely, Tottenham is
just 3 or 4 miles from Enfield. Megatron sadly went
out of business in February 2010 so Weston manfacturing is no
more.
More
information on the complex structure of Weston Aerospace is at
http://www.westonaero.com/weston/history/extended.htm
For
all the history buffs out there, here is an interesting letter
from a former employee, Charles
J.Mulhern.
If
anyone knows anything about the history of the Weston Electrical
Exposuremeter mentioned in the letter, I would love to hear about
it.
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