"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

On 2010-09-27, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

"DoN. Nichols" wrote:

The big nuisance was the number of pilot lights behind the
panel, and how difficult it was to dig in and replace them. Now *that*
was something which would really have benefited from LEDs. :-)


Or you could have put a diode in series with them and run them at
around half power. A pair of diodes would let you put half on each half
cycle.

But that front panel was *dark*. You needed the full brightness
of the lamps (#47 IIRC) to be able to read the frequency dial. And
others were to tell you when you were receiving stereo and other such
things.

I guess that half-power would be sufficient -- *if* I turned out
the room lights first. :-)


Actually the bulbs are non linear so it would be closer to 70%, and
the bulbs would probably last the lifetime of the equipment. Then
again, you could have used pairs at each location with the diodes and
get a little bit more brightness, and longer life.

People who restore old radios with a tapped filament on the rectifier
use a diode and a 9.1 volt zener to protect the filament at turn on.
The zener passes the excess current, until the filaments have warmed
up. BTW, the modification was my idea, and it took a long time to
convince the parts changers that they couldn't use a 6 V zener.

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