Hugh Hetherington Hearing Aid Museum
Hugh Hetherington Hearing Aid Museum

The Hearing Aid Museum

Hearing Aids of all types—Ear Trumpets, Carbon Hearing Aids, Vacuum Tube Hearing Aids, Transistor Hearing Aids, Body Hearing Aids, Eyeglass Hearing Aids and much more!

Home Enter the Museum About Us Contact Us

FREESubscriptionto:
Hearing Loss Help
The premier e-zine for people with hearing loss

Your email address
will never be
rented, traded or sold!

Your First Name:
Your E-mail:
Search this site:

 Results per
 page

 all words
 any words


Click on the "General Information" button (top button above) for an overview and general information on this category of hearing aid.

 

Hearing Aid Batteries

Acousticon No. 28 Hearing Aid Battery

The Acousticon No. 28,  1˝ and 3 volt  battery was very likely numbered to coincide with the introduction of the Model 28 (Silver Anniversary) carbon hearing aid which came out in 1927.

It weighed 6.6 oz. (188 g), and measured 4" by 2" by 1" (10.2 x 5.2 x 2.5 cm).

Incidentally, the Acousticon No. 28 battery was identical to the earlier Acousticon No. 2B battery, except for the "cover" design.

Click picture for larger view

 

Back Next

 
Front view of the Acousticon No. 28 carbon hearing aid battery showing the black label on the teal-colored background.

 

 

Click picture for larger view

 
Close-up view of the label on the front of the Acousticon No. 28 carbon hearing aid battery.

The label reads, "Acousticon Battery 28" and "Made by Dictograph Products Company Inc. New York, U.S.A."


 

Click picture for larger view

 
Top view of the Acousticon No. 28 hearing aid battery. This battery was rather unusual in that it had push-in sockets for both 1˝ and 3 volts.

The positive terminal (labeled "+" - left) was larger than the other two, so you couldn't plug things in backwards, thus preserving the correct polarity.

The negative terminals are labeled -1˝ volts (upper) and -3 volts (lower).

Presumably, if you didn't need all the power available, you could plug into the 1˝ volt socket. If you needed more power, you plugged into the 3 volt socket and had increased volume.

However, there are a couple of mysteries associated with this battery. First, carbon hearing aids typically used either 3 volt or 4˝ volts, not 1˝ volts. Second, since the two cells had to be wired in series (to get the 3 volts), if you used the 1˝ volt connection, you'd use up the first cell, and would thus waste the second cell as you could not access it for the second 1˝ volts, and if the first cell was used up, then plugging into the 3 volt connection would only give you somewhat less than 1˝ volts, not 3 volts.

Click picture for larger view

 

Bottom view of the Acousticon No. 28 carbon hearing aid battery.

 

 

 


 

Click picture for larger view

 

(If a larger picture doesn't appear, you may have to turn your pop-up blocker off)