Western union desk fax as camera

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Western union desk fax as camera

Postby McGee2021 » Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:08 pm

I recently purchased a working western union telefax transceiver, and I started to think, it works closely on the lines of a mechanical camera. I was wondering if there would be any way to convert this so I could hook it up to a televisor and whatever picture I would put on the desk fax, would appear in 32 line version on a televisor. Here are some pictures and specifications for one exactly like mine:

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/deskfax/index.html#service
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Re: Western union desk fax as camera

Postby DrZarkov » Thu Dec 31, 2015 8:40 pm

The scanning drum would have to make 750 RPM, and then it would only scan until the end of the drum. I don't know how many lines fit on the drum, but say something between 300 and 400 lines. That would give you about 10 seconds on a mechanical TV. I don't think you will be able to speed up the scanning that much, and a scanner which only works for seconds does not make any sense. Don't forget that there are collectors for an old fax like that, and you are going to destroy a part of history for a silly experiment.
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Re: Western union desk fax as camera

Postby McGee2021 » Fri Jan 01, 2016 8:39 am

Well, I wasn't planning to destroy it! I have numerous other uses for it. My cousin has one of the same models and we are working on a system to hook them together. I also wasn't planning on having a picture last very long on the receiver. To tell you the truth, 10 seconds is a lot more than what I nought it would last!
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