Weston Potential Indicator
date: label: Date made
content: about 1888
name: label: maker
content: Weston, Edward
notes: label: Description
content: In the 1880s—the early days of commercial electric power—convenient, rugged, and reliable instruments for measuring that power did not exist. Engineers had to struggle with complex, delicate, laboratory-type instruments that required leveling, calibration, and manipulation to yield a reading, which then required calculation to yield a meaningful number. Edward Weston, an immigrant English entrepreneur and electrical inventor and engineer, developed this instrument for measuring direct current potential, patented in 1886, to answer the demand for a better way. Although its leveling screws, delicate suspension, and glass shade (now missing) betray its laboratory antecedents, the hefty magnet, the moving coil design, and the "direct reading" pointer and scale show the direction in which Weston was heading. His subsequent instruments soon secured a worldwide reputation for reliability, precision, and ease of use.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Energy & Power
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from Princeton University, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, thru Dean Howard Menand
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.318562
label: accession number
content: 232729
label: catalog number
content: 318562
objectType: label: Object Name
content: voltmeter
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 in x 11 1/4 in; 27.94 cm x 28.575 cm