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And a Stanley Electric that's probably just as old - all from the early 80s.

These are indicators, not illuminators, and the camera makes them brighter than they are. Ma Bell made her stuff however she wanted, and didn't give one little shit about your standards.

And a Stanley Electric that's probably just as old - all from the early 80s. These are indicators, not illuminators, and the camera makes them brighter than they are. Ma Bell made her stuff however she wanted, and didn't give one little shit about your standards.
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[–] • 2 pts

Quick test.

510Ω in series with each, and they all have about a 3.3V drop on the resistor, so ~6.5mA is flowing in each leg of the circuit.

I'm probably starving them a bit, but the fact that they can light full at 6mA is interesting.

[–] • 1 pt

That's pretty cool.

Looks like they have a checkerboard like pattern on the lens/cap.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

Yes, they're diffused somewhat. They were designed to plug into a mating socket on the end of a card in telco switchgear as an indicator for something that was happening on the card itself.

There were others that didn't have the cap, and smaller ones that were used as indicators on cards and in consumer telephones. The Merilin II system had a lot of the smaller red/green units. They typically came in Red, Yellowish-Orange, and Greenish-Yellow. I've seen a few other colors, but they're kind of rare.