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Automatic Power traces its roots to Charles Wallace's original 1928 lampchanger patent. Wallace's lampchanger consisted of a rotating carriage holding a Model T headlight lamp at the focal point of an optic. When the operating lamp failed, a new lamp automatically rotated into the operating position. Wallace's lampchanger found an immediate welcome in navigational aids applications, particularly in critical, costly-to-maintain buoy lights. By the 1930s, the United States Lighthouse Service had embraced Wallace's patent and was rapidly converting the largest aids to navigation system in the world to electricity. To remote control and monitoring... From the electrification of aids to navigation to the development of sophisticated, GPS-based remote control and monitoring, API has continued to pioneer industry technology. As compact, dependable solar power replaced bulky, hazardous primary batteries, API engineers achieved ever-higher levels of system reliability and independence. The evolution of the lampchanger from Wallace's simple mechanical device to advanced, microprocessor-based, satellite-synchronized circuitry vividly illustrates the changes half a century can bring. API's UNIFLASH® II combination flasher/lampchanger utilizes the signal from the worldwide Global Positioning System for signal synchronization. Our new Remote Monitor Platform software allows the user to track buoy positions and remotely access, monitor and document critical platform system parameters.
API and Pharos Marine Firsts 1912 Dalen's Sunvalve Daylight Control 1928 First lampchanger 1947 First platform lighting system - Gulf of Mexico 1949 First two-mile fog signal - Gulf of Mexico 1960 First precision molded acryclic 155mm and 250mm lenses 1976 First tensioned-moored buoy in the U.S. 1978 First radio synchronization of lights 1992 First Stepper motor controlled lampchanger 1992 First lampchanger/flasher combined on a single frame 1995 First GPS buoy location system 1996 First GPS synchronization of lights 2000 First Retrofit of LEDs to Classic Optics |
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