Found a chassis from one of these 4V Vibrator model radios in really bad shape but had a go at getting it to work doing with some success.
This is it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhCTRc996-k

Where and why were these radios used? Farms? What kind of batteries would have been used to run them?

In the 1950's those sorts of radios were very popular with mainly farmers and their own 32V lighting plants as the radios were designed to run from a pair of 2V lead acid batteries in series. One could purchase individual 2V cells in hard rubber cases especially made for such radios.

I can recall visiting a farmer friend who had a couple of such sets (2 houses on the farm) and they had 8 x 2V cells with two on charge tapped across a 4V string on their lighting plants the other pair were on charge.

They used to move the cells along the 16 x 2V cell pack for 32 V each day as they were recharged so as to balance out the unequal recharge of the 32V bank IF they left the 4V assembly across just 2 of the 16 cell pack.

It was sort of almost a weekly ritual to swap over the discharged pair from the radio onto the 32V bank. The 2V cells had convenient carrying handles and they used alligator clips and thin flexible cables to hook things up.

Was a bit of a stir in one house I recall where the farmer dumped the recharged cell down on the floor & slopped some of the acid onto the wall behind. A week or three later there was a big brown stain and the plaster board started to fall apart as the acid ate into it. Mum was NOT pleased.

Lindsay

Thanks for your comments, that's interesting and answers the question perfectly.As an aside I see you are in Darlington. I don't know how long you have lived there but I did my apprenticeship at the (then) Southern Cross service station on top of Greenmount when it was a French car specialist workshop. We had a lot of customers that lived in Darlington.

There were 2 volt cells made at the time and they weren't much smaller than the 6 volt car batteries of the time. People who didn't have a way to recharge them had to take them to their local garage for recharge.

All battery-powered radios were intended for those who didn't have mains power connected. There were a few people who still used gas for lighting, cooking and hot water up until the mid 1940s and they were amongst those who required a battery-powered radio.

I was in a milk bar in Toowoomba, QLD waiting for a hamburger and chips to be cooked and whilst I was waiting I couldn't help notice that the shop still has a working gasolier, complete with intact mantle. They did have the electricity on though so I am assuming that the gasolier was simply out of use.

Many Victorian-era houses in Sydney are still fitted with them, though I'd say most are disconnected as natural gas would overheat them.

Until each state set up their electricity commissions, almost no farms had mains electricity. It wasn't really needed until the arrival of television.

Interesting info. On that last comment, my Dad tells the story of his experience watching the first family TV off an old, slow Lister generator and the result that had on image stability. Made their eyes water he reckons.

Stationery engines like Lister and Wolseley were all too common on farms way back when, as water pumps and generators. They didn't break and ran on fumes. Like radios, they are collectors' items now and there are groups dedicated to them.

I think you mean stationary, unless they were in a newsagency

I'll blame the spelling checker for that. It cannot defend it's honour.

And the other widely used 32V lighting system brand was Dunlite which used a wind powered generator for charging batteries. My wife grew up on a sheep & cattle property near Hawker SA and that was what she remember was used there. She also remembers that before the 'lectric they used Aladdin brand kero lamps but as a small child she was scared of them after one was knocked over and started a fire in the living room. They also had a radio but the details of its power supply escapes her.

Don't know about 1940's: We didn't get SECV reticulated power until 1962. One of the things to remember is that a lot of the batteries of that era had the cells connected over wall and you could tap each cell individually. so you could go 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12.

I can actually still run my 1938 VCT from 6V, or mains as the tractor is still a 6V one. Neighbour had a 32V Lister Generator set. Our water heater was a heat exchanger in the stove, with electric virtually the same tank design as we now use for solar.

A lot of vibrator radio's were run from car & tractor batteries. There is still a lot of confusion with batteries, as the proper batteries for lighting plants were "motive storage" not SLI. The latter did not appreciate being run flat & didn't last long doing that. After about 15 total discharges they would never have more than 75% of original capacity.

We still have batteries with "Deep cycle" on them , but a true deep cycle battery will not have CCA on it. and some true Motive storage batteries lie about their capacity at a given discharge rate.

From what I heard there were parts of rural Queensland that were not connected to the grid until the late '60s and some had been previously linked to generators operated by the local shire councils. I was also told by a local that in the 1940s and '50s some houses in the area around Beaudesert were connected to a steam powered DC generator in a sawmill.

In the 1970s when Deitch Bros Disposal in Oxford Street Sydney was still in business, they sold large quantities of NiFE cells to farmers for various purposes including lighting. As I recall these had an output of 1.2V per cell but were extremely durable and had a much greater working life than the lead-acid variety.

Ah, Deitch Bros. I still have some junk bits that I bought from there. The other place that I haunted was Sheridan's at Redfern. That was one place that I could not leave without buying something.