Precision International EDM (Beetle 500)
date: label: date made
content: ca 1975
name: label: maker
content: Precision International
notes: label: Description
content: The Beetle 500 is a short-range, infrared EDM with automatic readout. Introduced in 1975, it was said to be "The only compact edm at a compact price." It weighed 5.5 pounds, had a range of 1,600 feet, and cost $2,995. It was designed and produced by Precision International, a firm established in June 1971 by men who had worked at the Engineering Development Center at Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Precision International was bought by Wild Heerbrugg in 1979, and by Cubic Precision in 1984. This example is marked "Precision International Beetle 500 Precision International Inc. Tullahoma Tennessee U.S.A. Serial No. 784."
label: Description
content: The Beetle, originally known as the Cricket, had been developed on contract for Teledyne-Gurley. According to one account, the front section of the Precision International building contains offices "and the back serves as the manufacturing plant. An unusual sight is the printed circuit department, where three highly skilled women busily attach wires and connections to small circuit boards for the Cricket. The work demands painstaking precision." When the Cricket turned out to have a shorter range than anticipated, Teledyne-Gurley pulled out, and Precision International renamed the instrument the Beetle. Some 7,000 units were eventually produced. The Beetle was covered in part by patent (#4,105,332) for "Apparatus for producing a light beam having a uniform phase front and distance measuring apparatus" granted on August 8, 1978, to Walter Hohne and Robin Hines, and assigned to Precision International.
label: Description
content: Ref: Precision International, <i>Beetle 500</i>.
label: Description
content: Advertisement in <i>Civil Engineering</i> 46 (May 1976): 42.
label: Description
content: Robin H. Hines, "A Geodetic and Survey Infrared Distance Measurement Instrument, <i>Proceedings of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers</i> 95 (1976): 204-211.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Tennessee, Tullahoma
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Surveying and Geodesy
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Precision International. Beetle 500
label: Related Publication
content: American Society of Civil Engineers. Civil Engineering
label: Related Publication
content: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. Proceedings of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: J. Patrick Moore
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1996.0240.01
label: accession number
content: 1996.0240
label: catalog number
content: 1996.0240.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: edm
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 1/2 in x 9 3/4 in x 6 1/2 in; 19.05 cm x 24.765 cm x 16.51 cm