Johnathan - may I humbly suggest that you are mistaken. Consider either
approach that provides a 6V feed to the hobbs meter. Put a 30 mdf capacitor
across the meter terminals. when the contacts close to energize the wind
solenoid (that's how the mechanism works on the one I'm familar with), the
current is provided predominantly by the capacitor. The 7806 (or the more
common 7805) will supply 3 amps, which is probably enough by itself, but the
capacitor will give it an added surge capability.


"Jonathan Ward" wrote in message
...

solid state semiconductor regulator chip, in this case it

Dern it, I should have explained better.
Yes, it is an hourmeter. Round and made to fit in an instrument panel
hole
approx 2 1/8 dia.
Nope, have no idea what the current draw is. How do I measure that?
Semi conductor chip....is this what is called a zener by someone else?

A zener diode and a voltage regulator are not the same. If you had a
zener diode rated at 6 volts for the avalanche point, then it is
guaranteed to have a voltage drop of 6 volts from lead to lead, if you
hook it up properly. Because of this when you hook it up in series like
the other guy described, 12-6 =6

The voltage regulator is the much more sophisticated way of doing it. If
you use one of those, the voltage will always be 6 volts no matter what.

The trouble with both parts is getting one big enough to handle the
current.

-Jonathan