[sigh]...One of those "MRRing" days

[tstage]

[I originally posted this over in the Layout forum late last night.  So, if you've already read this before, forgive me.]
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Don't you just love learning those practical and valuable lessons that stick with you for a lifetime?  Well, I learned one last night.

Both of the 1.5V GOR bulbs in one of my scratch-built exterior light poles burned out so I sat down to replace them.  (One had been burned out for a while, while the other one hung on.  I just waited to both went before bothering to change them.)  It took me a little time to remove the old wiring and bulbs, clean out the glue from and repaint the light shades, prebend and feed the new lights through the light pole, and resolder both lights so that they were wired in parallel.

When I feed both sets of wires for the light pole through the 1/8" hole in the foam base to hook it up to the connector switch, I discovered that the light pole was a little too loose in the hole and was slipping down.  To fix the problem I wrapped a few turns of transparent tape around the base of the pole to stiffen it up.  Worked liked a charm!   Anyhow, as I was getting ready to position the light pole in the hole again, unfortunately the wires for both lights gently brushed across the mainline and...you guessed it - blink! - 14V of DC said bye-bye to two 1.5V bulbs.

The funny thing is, when the lights came on momentarily, it wasn't even a bright flash - just on and off - as if you had quickly flipped the switch to the power strip.  Hoping that it wasn't enough to fry the bulbs, I finished connecting up the light pole to the slide connectors.  Nothing.

After checking and rechecking both light wires on other connectors to make sure that there wasnt' a bad connection to this particular slide connector, I got out my new auto-ranging multimeter that I bought from Sears ($18, on sale!) and checked the resistance of the two wires..  The reading didn't seem high at first until I checked it against a good, known working light pole.  Yep, both lights were dead.  And that was my last two 1.5V bulbs.

Well, the downside is that I'll have to go out to Hobby Town and pick up a new 10-pak of 1.5V, 30A bulbs.  The upside?

1. I'll now have enough light bulbs to make more light poles so that I can finally finish lighting my yard.
2. I found out that using Elmer's glue to hold the light bulbs up in the shade (instead of CA) makes removing the bulb and wiring much easier.
3. I shouldn't have to touch up the shade or light pole with any paint.
   
4. I got to try out my new multimeter.  (It's not a Fluke meter but it seems decent.)

So...it's not exactly how I wanted my evening to turn out.  But - at least it wasn't one of my locomotives crashing to the ground.  (Makes me shutter just thinking about that.)  Once I pick up the bulbs later today from Hobby Town, I should be able to have that light pole lighting up the area around my sanding tower again in about an hours time.


Tom

[tcf511]

One more possible upside. When you go to Hobby Town you might find something that you absolutely have to have that you didn't even know that they made.

[selector]

..which turns it into one of thooose days...

[Texas Zepher]

10-pak of 1.5V, 30A bulbs.

Wow, those are some power hungry bulbs.  Personally I always use the circitron micro-miniture 1.5V, 0.15A blubs.

I did almost the same thing with a locomotive.  I installed the motor pickups of a DCC sound decoder and just set it on the track to test.  The yet unconnected speaker wires dangled down onto the track and zot!

[Anonymous]

..which turns it into one of thooose days...

 

Followed by a night out appeasing the spouse with a expensive dinner or particular honey do job to work off one of those days. =)

I like the flood light picture I think it's awesome!