On Fri, 10 Oct 1997, Peter Zaborski wrote:
> Robert,
>
> I am a few steps ahead of you in resolving the same problem on my TR6.
> It sounds like your rheostat is toast. One way to check if the rest of
> the circuit is fine is to "by-pass" the rheostat and apply the "full"
> voltage to the dash lights.
Mine's in a state of "near-toasthood": it only works in 2 places. If
liberal doses of contact cleaner won't solve this, I'm going to replace
the unit.
> when I did this). I believe that a rheostat is supposed to provide
> variable resistance ranging from a min value of 0 (ie. full voltage) to
> some max value >0 chosen by the designer as the one at which the lights
> appear least dim yet still lit.
On our newer cars, you can also dial the knob right down so that the dash
lights are out. Just a suggestion.
I fiddled with numbers some time ago and decided a 15W
rheostat/potentiometer with about 250 ohm (could be wrong here!)
resistance would be adequate. As someone else stated, make sure it's not
a 'log-taper' pot, these are only used for volume adjustments and would
not have the right range.
I'd bet Radio Shack would have the part we're looking for (...somewhere)
but I'd check out the specialty electronics shops first.
Perhaps an RV supply store? Some of the really expensive RVs gotta have
dimmable lights :-)
-Malcolm
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