EASY SELF-STARTER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 10 December 1927, Page 13

EASY SELF-STARTER

SMALL ELECTRICAL TUBE.

RESPONDS TO OHAND SHADOW.

An electrical tube more sensitive than anything yet in electrical research. which operates on approximately one billionth of an ampere of electrical current, is being demonstrat ted in the show window of an anto mobile firm in New York recently.

The tube which is the invention of D. D. Knowles, research engineer of the Westinghouse Electric Company is so sensitive that it will respond to the shadow of a hand passing over it. The car which Is being operated in the demonstration is a sedan weighing over 3000,pounds. A spot is indicated on the window directly back of the tube, Anyone from the outside passing his hand over this spot sets up an immediate reaction in tho tube, sufficient to pul the starting motor of the automobile and the car starts and goes forward and backward. It continues in operation until the shadow of a hand is again passed over tho spot on the window, which automatically shuts oit the electric energy.

Termed the “grid controlled glow discharge tube” the device, perfected by D. D. Knowles, a young scientist in the research laboratories of the Westinghouse Company, is so sensitive that a human hand placed near a grid plate is sufficient to operate it. This act causes the tube to glow and discharge energy efficient to actuate a relay.