Can someone help me wire this light up?

[85 GT Kid]

I just acquired this Grimes emergency light and I want to wire it up but im not sure how??? I did get the main one lit but not the two little ones.

 

[yellow]

Hmm, :thinking:
from the pics it looks, as if this one is fed with 2 CR123 batteries?

... but now I have spent about 5 minutes on the internet and did not get any more info,
and have to say: this is much more than should be put into.

get ANY led based light from a mid-quality maker, put a Lithium primary cell in, and You are way better off.

 

[SimulatedZero]

Have you tried bypassing the circuit and directly connecting the light to a power source?

 

[yellow]

directly connecting the light to a power source?

CAUTION!!!

I am not used to US wall plugs, but for me, those metal parts look like something to clamp 2 batteries down, not to hold cables.
Is it possible that this is a battery light that lights up when taken from the holder?

 

[85 GT Kid]

Well that clamp is for batteries and ive hooked 6Vs to it and got it lit but I think that the batterys are a secondary source. These were used in military aircraft so that would be for incase of a wreck. I'll get a pic tonight of the back part.

 

[BobBarker]

That does look to be the case. You might have one problem that you will have to deal with. All modern (turbine era) US aircraft have both AC and DC electrical systems. The DC system is a nominal 28VDC. The problem is with the AC. They use a 115v (for a single phase) 400Hz system. Your standard home grid is 115 (120v) 60Hz. Being that we don't really know what the transistor and cap are in there for, it's hard to tell if you will be able to just hook it up to your home grid.

 

[85 GT Kid]

Well I eventually want this to go in a vehicle so it'll run on a 12V system but im not sure about how that'll work on a 28V piece (forgot to mention that). What about a step up transformer (cant remember if thatll work Elctronics class was so long ago lol)?

 

[85 GT Kid]

O heres a pic. See the contacts?

Heres the main one lit

 

[85 GT Kid]

O hey Yellow the reason why I wanna use this is its a military piece so i'd like to use it in a Willys GPW (WWII Jeep).

 

[alpg88]

wow, nice

 

[SimulatedZero]

Id it is designed to function with two different power supplies that would explain the need for the circuitry to maintain a constant level of light. The question is whether or not it boosts the light power on 28v or bucks it down on 115v. If it has to boost at 28 volts then it will be tricky to get it that much power off of 12 volts. Though, if you plan to make this an emergency or general use light in your Willys then I would think that you should be able to directly connect the light emitter and run it off of 12 volts. You may want to see if you can find out what kind of bulb is in that light so you know what kind of lumens you can get out of the various voltages. Also, you may want to look into replacing that bulb with a more modern bulb of your choice designed to run off of 12 volts. That way you can keep the shell and vintage look while having a light designed to your needs.

 

[85 GT Kid]

Well I pulled the bulb and hooked that up seperate and its still bright as crap on 6V. Pulled the two tiny ones off and hooked them up to 6V and they were dim (see the crappy pic). That leads me to assume that the lil ones are actually the main ones that prob stay on all the time and the big one is the secondary one that would prob work even if the plane/helo had power but it can draw its power off of the power if they crash or lose power.

So my question now is could I replace the tiny bulbs with 12V ones so I could run those through a seperate switch to the dash to hit if I needed a quick light or pull the red switch for the big one for more light (I like all my stuff to work ).

 

[SimulatedZero]

I don't see why you couldn't. You may want to take some pics of the various bulbs and post them in the incan section to see if they can identify them. Other than the fact that they are flange bulbs I can't really tell you much about them unfortunately. Without knowing what the bulbs are you wouldn't be able to replace them with anything else.

 

[alpg88]

i wouldn't do a thing to it,
if you wanna use it on ww2 jeep, leave it alone, let it be somewhat authentic, the light is old inc light, by today standards it is as lame as it gets, output wise, and you can't really do much to it, without making irreversible changes.

 

[85 GT Kid]

I don't see why you couldn't. You may want to take some pics of the various bulbs and post them in the incan section to see if they can identify them. Other than the fact that they are flange bulbs I can't really tell you much about them unfortunately. Without knowing what the bulbs are you wouldn't be able to replace them with anything else.

Sorry it took awhile to reply I left shortly after my last post to Massachusetts for a week and since I got back i've been busy at work trying to train my new ast manager (kinda backwards having a sales associate (me) doing that but whatever). I'll get some pics as soon as I can.

i wouldn't do a thing to it,
if you wanna use it on ww2 jeep, leave it alone, let it be somewhat authentic, the light is old inc light, by today standards it is as lame as it gets, output wise, and you can't really do much to it, without making irreversible changes.

The problem isn't the light output (main one works great) I just have two problems.

1) I need to find a way to wire it so it'll run on a 12V system (whenever I do a jeep I wont use the 6V system).

2) those lil dull lights I believe are supposed to be run on a 28V system so its not that they're dim cause of old tech its because of the lack of voltage which I won't be able to give it anyways.

 

[jhanko]

These lights contained NiCad batteries that charged off of the planes 28v grid when in the cradle. You're overdriving that bulb with 6v and possibly already fried the battery charging circuit.

 

[jhanko]

A little more info: