Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Pressure and Temperature Controls – Household
An hydraulic bellows actuated, automatic temperature controls, employing extended capillary tube sensing, equipped with compact totally enclosed bellows, manual reset, electric motor overload protection, and featuring new market driven enhancements: economy adjustment, semi-automatic defrost and fast freeze, all enclosed in compacted Bakelite case, Ranco, Type FF, circa 1939.
One of a series of early, hydraulic bellows actuated, automatic temperature controls, employing extended capillary tube sensing – the preferred sensing technology of the mid 20th century. [See items ID # 142- 151]. The genre would give way by the end of the century to electronic sensing methods.
Technical Significance:
The series [see items ID # 142- 151] profiles the evolution of extended capillary tube technology through a myriad engineering design developments and applications. It was a period driven by, and responding to, a new often shameless, marketing hyperbola. For the industry would take full advantage of knowledge from the newly found thermal and fluid flow sciences of the times, as well as of the new materials technology and manufacturing methods of the immediate pre-W.W.II years.
The industry was clearly out to create ever-increasing consumer interest and expectations for a user friendly, fully automated, self-regulating, affordable, mechanically driven cabinet refrigerators for the Canadian home. It was “an automatic refrigerator in every kitchen” following the marketing pattern set by the automobile industry for “an automobile in every garage”, that was the call of the captains of the household refrigeration industry. The perfection of a reliable, affordable, and user friendly, automatic temperature control was critical to the success of this business venture.
The Type F F appears to have been a significant step in the incorporation of new market driven features, as refrigerator manufactures looked increasingly to the replacement, consumer up-grade market to maintain productivity
Industrial Significance:
see above
