Unusual Large Electric Shutter - What to do?

[Ed K.]

Need advice -

In my collection of surplus purchases, I have a 3.5" electrically operated shutter and iris assembly that has only 2318 actuations on the counter (first overhaul is due at 12,000 cycles). Everything moves smoothly and it appears to have all required wires and terminals, etc., undamaged. The whole deal is servo controlled. This shutter was commonly used in many applications, such as mapping cameras, however it is very unusual to find one that hasn't been butchered somehow. I have not removed any of its covers or forced it. The iris adjusts just fine too.

I also have the 24", non tea-colored, coated 24" f6 optics for it that are in plenty decent shape to make images.

This thing is big, like 10 inches in diameter overall, however without the glass in it, it weighs less than 5 lbs.

Originally, I wanted to harvest the elements, put them into a barrel and then use them as a wonderful portrait lens with waterhouse stops. I may still do that yet.

But the shutter has me going. It might be possible to make it work, and then create a remote firing, fast shutter speed (well, faster than a Packard shutter that's for sure!) rig with a 4x5 or so on the back of it. I was thinking of a large plastic pipe or similar for that - simple and easy - and just about any 4x5 back. The lens probably covers more than 4x5 with good sharpness, and as a portrait lens, most likely 8x10 perhaps with some corner darkening (good for portrait use).

I have no plans that give functions for the servos, and I suspect that much of it is only 48 volt.

It seems that it would be a terrible waste to take one of these in (probably) perfect working order and then make it into some hacked rig by removing the servos or adapting newer servos to it. It would really be neat to hear it trip and also to see the iris wind back and forth. Also, to have it in a long waterproof tube to sit out in the rainy night taking long lens landscape shots while sitting comfortably in the truck with a laptop to control it would be interesting indeed.

I think that it would be nice to either find out what signals and power levels need to go to it and then play with it, or otherwise, try to find it a good home with somebody else who can make really good use of it without destroying it. I'm sure that it has a beer can metal value of quite a few bucks too.

Any ideas? Anyone have plans or repair manuals / installation manuals for one of these shutters? Anyone want to buy this thing? Take this thing? It's really a marvel of engineering.