You may recall a post I made last week concerning really dim instrument
lights. Well thanks to some pointers from some of you I have begun the
process of getting real instrument lights back in my TR6. Here is what I
have so far...
Bypassing the rheostat altogether results in all dash lights functioning
as I would like. The brightness is definitely good. So that remains an
option for me. I would still retian the (now bypassed) rheostat so that
the dash control would stay the same.
However, I thought I would try to actually have a controllable level of
instrument lighting (now that I know I can have it full strength for
relatively no effort). So I took apart the rheostat and found that some
of the tracers were missing due to presumably too much current at soem
point in the past going through them and frying them off. Here is my
plan...
I have determined that a modern "potentiometer" (or "pot") will perform
the same function as the rheostat formerly did. The pots are easily
obtained from most electronic shops (and they cost almost nothing
compared to the $60 US or so the rheostat costs). The challenge is to
find a pot which has the same characterisitcs as the rheostat and will
physically be adaptable to the housing of the rheostat and/or dash.
In order to get this info, I need to know what to do. My plan involves
getting a number of resistors and placing them one at a time between the
terminals on the rheostat to determine which resistance produces the
lowest level of lighting I want for my "dimmest" setting. That way if
the resistor which gives this level is 500 ohms for example, I can look
for a 500ohm pot at the electronic store. Of course the other value I
need is how much current should this pot be able to take. Pots are rated
in watts (voltage * current). Does anyone know what kind of current goes
through the instrument light circuit on a TR6 (under normal conditions)?
I assume that 14 volts is the correct voltage. I don't want to fry my
multimeter trying to measure the current if the value is a lot higher
that the meter is built for (10 amps max).
Any help from the eletronic wizzes woudl be greatly apprecaited. Thanks.
Peter Zaborski
76 TR6 (CF58310 UO)
Calgary AB Canada
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