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NOS Vintage Rare Western Electric KS-8624 drag-cup servomotor WWII M4 M7 M9NOS, never used.
sold exactly as shown, please ask questions before you offer.info about it found online:
The Western Electric KS-8624 is a vintage two-phase, smooth sleeve-rotor AC drag-cup servomotor originally developed during World War II. Built by Western Electric and designed by Bell Telephone Laboratories, "KS" stands for "Kearny Specification," a coding system AT&T used for specialized non-standard machinery and components.The motor is highly notable for two vastly different historical reasons: its critical role in WWII radar computer systems, and its later adoption by fringe scientist Wilhelm Reich for his controversial "Orgone Motor" experiments.Technical Characteristics
- Motor Type: It is an eddy current motor, specifically a smooth sleeve-rotor 2-phase servomotor.
- Mechanism: It features a hollow, non-ferromagnetic "drag-cup" or sleeve fitted over a central stator. This design creates a low-inertia, non-magnetic rotor that offers rapid, highly sensitive responses to electromagnetic changes. [1]
- Frequency Responses: The motor responds variably depending on circuit capacitance—for example, performing best at 450 Hz with a 1 μF capacitor, and at 250 Hz when using a 10 μF capacitor. []
WWII Military ApplicationDuring World War II, the KS-8624 and related spinner motors (like the KS-8988 and KS-9154) were highly classified components. Because of their precise control and low-inertia movement, they were integrated into:
- The M4 and M7 Gun Directors: Mechanical calculators built by Sperry Corp to track and target enemy aircraft.
- The M-9 Gun Director: Designed by Bell Labs, this was the world's first electronic analog computer. It paired with the SCR-584 pulsed microwave radar system to automatically aim anti-aircraft guns, fundamentally altering the course of the air war.
The Wilhelm Reich "Orgone Motor" ConnectionIn the late 1940s, psychoanalyst and fringe scientist Wilhelm Reich claimed to have discovered a cosmic energy called "orgone". He sought to build an "Orgone Motor" that could run indefinitely on this mass-free atmospheric energy.
- Reich acquired several surplus military Western Electric drag-cup motors, specifically utilizing the KS-8624 (Serial No. 2333) and the KS-9154 (Serial No. 1227).
- He called them "spinner motors" because the low-friction drag cups would spin rapidly when hooked up to his experimental Geiger-counter-based circuits.
- While mainstream science considers the Orgone Motor a pseudoscience artifact driven by ordinary ambient electrical currents or thermal variations, these specific Western Electric model numbers remain famous within alternative energy, aetherometry, and orgone fringe-science communities.