Hamilton Felix
Enlightened
One of my almost new (late 70's or early 80's) Cibie Booster Beams went out. I suspected bulb, but grabbed the Fluke 117 out of the drawer at work and checked for voltage at the lamp. It was significantly less than expected, but it was there and the lamp was open circuit, so I proceeded.
Opening up the lamp, I saw it was not the bulb. The nearly new ceramic based Cibie H2 bulb holder had failed. One of the tiny rivets holding the front metal parts to the connection tab on the back had let go, and the other one was loose. Given the very low hours on the lamp, that really surprised me. I've seen those bulb holders affected by heat and oxidation, but I wouldn't expect a new one to fall apart.
OK, wait until I get home and scrounge through my pieces to find another Cibie bulb holder (if the Marchal 900 and 950 lamp holders are more rare, why did I keep finding those? It's never what you're looking for).
This morning, I put the lamp together and pursued the voltage issue. I was losing a good 1.65 volts through my ground. I mounted to a piece of angle iron running across between the two push bars on my old cop car, never questioned that it would be grounded. Eye opener!
Grab a couple of terminals and a crimper, quickly run about a yard of #10 stranded copper from the mounting bolt of one lamp to the negative battery terminal, then fire up the car and try it out. Voila! With car running and lights on, 13.5 volts at the back of the lamp furthest from the ground wire connection.
Lesson: Check and confirm a good ground, don't assume. I should know better. I'm a proponent of running grounds, on my car hauler trailer, my motorcycle, etc. But this time I just assumed all that metal would be a good ground. :fail:
Opening up the lamp, I saw it was not the bulb. The nearly new ceramic based Cibie H2 bulb holder had failed. One of the tiny rivets holding the front metal parts to the connection tab on the back had let go, and the other one was loose. Given the very low hours on the lamp, that really surprised me. I've seen those bulb holders affected by heat and oxidation, but I wouldn't expect a new one to fall apart.
OK, wait until I get home and scrounge through my pieces to find another Cibie bulb holder (if the Marchal 900 and 950 lamp holders are more rare, why did I keep finding those? It's never what you're looking for).
This morning, I put the lamp together and pursued the voltage issue. I was losing a good 1.65 volts through my ground. I mounted to a piece of angle iron running across between the two push bars on my old cop car, never questioned that it would be grounded. Eye opener!
Grab a couple of terminals and a crimper, quickly run about a yard of #10 stranded copper from the mounting bolt of one lamp to the negative battery terminal, then fire up the car and try it out. Voila! With car running and lights on, 13.5 volts at the back of the lamp furthest from the ground wire connection.
Lesson: Check and confirm a good ground, don't assume. I should know better. I'm a proponent of running grounds, on my car hauler trailer, my motorcycle, etc. But this time I just assumed all that metal would be a good ground. :fail:
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But in reality, especially with cars that have been blown apart and given thick, show-quality paint jobs and/or undercoat expected to be sufficient to survive year 'round driving in a hostile climate, that often *IS* the problem.
