Mystery electric phonograph motor

[chunnybh]

What an amazing looking beast. The only other synchronous motor for a turntable that I know of, is the Simpsons Electric Turntable. It needs to be physically spun to start it. I believe capacitors were used in later models to kick start the motor
Here is my page on it:
http://www.gramophonemuseum.com/simpsons-motor.html
Unlike this cast Western Electric motor the Simpsons one is ultra-light.
I was talking to a friend in Japan who works on magnetic trains “Maglev”. He mentioned that they are working on a hybrid design using the principals of synchronous motors and wheels. Reinventing the wheel.

[streetmechanic14]

The pallophotophone is a remarkable enough gadget to justify interest purely on its own but it happens to intersect with several long-standing interests of mine: sound recording technology, 1920's music, and electromechanical oscillographs of the 1898-1930 period. My first question, though, concerns this speaker. When I bought it (maybe forty years ago) the seller described it as "Photophone" equipment and at the time I just assumed it was what would be found in any movie theater equipped with the RCA system circa 1929. Since then I've seen plenty of paperwork from that time and the speakers shown don't resemble this at all (with the exception of the "pot magnet"/field coil assembly).
What Western Electric was doing with its Vitaphone system 1926-27 is extensively documented but exactly what RCA was up to at the same time seems pretty obscure.
-Dave

[pallophotophone]

It is positively a RCA speaker used in Photophone system. The voice coil form suspension with the springs is one of RCA's design. Very unique design and a very uncommon speaker.

I have pictures of 6 of these speakers mounted on a baffle. 1929- "Motion Pictures with Sound" Authored by James R. Cameron.

It also could be from a portable 35 mm system RCA marketed The connectors - one for field coil excitation- the other for audio from the amplifier- were used on many forms of RCA speaker. But would have been used on portable equipment for ease of set up and tear down. I have a manual with that portable system pictured in it, but it's not where it ought to be, so I can't give you the model number of anything.

Hope this helps...