Strip speedo illumination

codekiddie said:
Rover-tragic. said:
The "off" function on the dimmer switch is designed for night-time highway type driving. It allows you to turn off the dash lights so you can concentrate entirely on the road.
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I find that hard to understand, since the 70MPH speed limit came into being in December 1965, so without the speedo illumination it would be easy to do more :shock: and if it was designed for that, then I would have thought that a car manufactured after that date would not allow the speedo illumination to be switched off:- or is it simply because we were not as safety conscious back then?
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Hi again All,
Not sure of the road based legalities of speed limits and how they relate to the use of instrument lights etc., but you will find this function on many cars. I would hazard a guess the majority after a certain age.
My old Chrysler Valiant has it, my Barracuda has it, the little rocket FIAT 128S I once owned had it and most of the cars I have driven in my time have had it (in Australia mostly).
:?: :?: :?:

Or did I just ingest too many Fungoids at Woodstock and imagine the whole thing. :shock: :shock:

RT.
 
We have an expression over here: "Dimbulb", but that refers to your "Bernie" character.My panel lights also annoy me.
The bulbs are 12 volt 2 watt threaded types. It may be possible to find higher wattage bulbs of the same size and replace them.
Another solution would be to find a lower voltage bulb and, since there is a rotary potentiometer in between, keep the lighting at a low enough level to avoid melting plastic parts.
I plan to look up some bulbs and will let the forum know if I find a good replacement.
 
I tried using the 'panel out' function on various cars but being perfectly capable of concentrating on the road at night (an advantage when you are a night artic' driver :wink: ), can see absolutely no point in it whatsoever. It just makes it seem like you have a fault to me & is consequently very annoying. In the P5B I have removed the rheostat switch altogether & replaced it with the on/off switch for the electric fuel pump. I like full & clear instrument illumination at all times & will eventually get round to putting LED bulbs in my cars. Someone in the P5 club was making his own such bulbs a while back.
 
when i had the strip speedo in mth and it was not bright at all very deem and it was turned right up think that was the reason why i went for the later type
 
If you are really keen on getting LED-lights and dim them mind the following.

You dim LEDs by pulsing them on-off. The on/off ratio affects the brigtness.

Get an electronics tinkerer and describe your problem. He will build you a circuit board the size of a matchbox and connect the dimmer-control-knop to it. The wiring will then be straight forward.

I havn't done that but it's the way I would do it.

Vin
 
For myself, I'm not fussed about a dimming function, just dials that I can see. The guy in the P5 club was soldering groups of LEDS into the casings of standard bulbs which seems to be the route to try if equivalent LED bulbs aren't available yet.
 
While i had everything apart trying to seal the ventilation galleries, i decided to have a go at improving the illumination.
I didn't had to try too hard. Regarding the speedo, i just fitted 6W BA9 bulbs in place of the usual 4W ones. It is definately brighter now, while it still retains the diming function. The rev counter was a little more complicated as i could not find a replacement for the screw on bulb fitted. So i replaced the receptacle with a BA9 type, and fitted a 6W BA9 bulb as well. Sorted. The clock is more of a chalenge as it seems that BA7 bulbs come only in 2 or 2.2 W. I will try to find first some 4W BA7 bulbs, if that doesn't work, i will try to adapt something suitable.
I want to avoid leds as the light they emit is totally out of tune with the original night ambience within the cabin.
 
When I was in my last year of Technical college in 1989 prior to going to University, I recall a conversation with one of my lecturers on instrument illumination. He said that when he would drive during the night from Sydney to Brisbane, a distance of about 600 Miles (1000km), he would turn the instrument lights off as he found them obtrusive and that he could better concentrate on the road ahead when he was in complete darkness.

Personally, I like the illumination and always have them set at maximum brightness. The series 2 instrumentation is lovely, clear and bright, just the way I like it, and I have no problem with night driving or maintaining concentration.

Ron.
 
Ron, i guess it has to do mostly with the illumination of the road you are driving. When the road is illuminated, yes, maximum brightness is fine, but on an absolutely dark road, perhaps it is more comfortable to lower the intensity of the instrument illumination.
 
I've got a panel off switch on the midget as well, and it's cool, but they're always on as they also light up important things like oil pressure, water temperature (it is a K series after all!) and electricityness, and it unnerves me to not see them :oops:

On the subject of P6 lamps, the stip is dim but the lamp under the shifter thingy is eyeburningly bright, and heats up the shift numbers something lovely. what's going on there?
 
1396midget wrote,...
On the subject of P6 lamps, the stip is dim but the lamp under the shifter thingy is eyeburningly bright, and heats up the shift numbers something lovely. what's going on there?
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Hi Rob,

It should be a 12V, 3W Festoon Bulb. When you place your fingers on the selector plate, it will feel quite warm which is normal. Is your bulb as it should be?

Ron.
 
There was a time in the UK, when P6's were the newest thing on the road, when you could drive on a moonlit night with just sidelamps and no headlights. Then with the instrument lights switched off it was very atmospheric and perfectly safe - you never saw another car.

Those days are long, long gone!

Chris
 
Dave3066 said:
I've never had any problems with speedo lighting levels on the Lady C. The rest of the cabin is so dark that the speedo illumination seems pretty good to me.
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Having got Lady C back on the road and in daily use again I'd like to retract this statement :oops: It might be my eyesight getting worse or the glare from modern headlamps but I have to admit that the strip speedo illumination is not the best :roll: Driving home the last few days in the dark I've had great difficulty seeing the instruments. My eyes just cannot adjust quick enough from the glare of oncoming headlamps to the low level of illumination from the instruments. It's fine when all is dark outside but a lot of the time I have at best a vague idea of how fast I'm going from the position of the strip. Think I need to look at a way of improving that or get myself some groovy anti-glare glasses for night driving...NOT!

NDG.jpg


Dave
 
Dave3066 said:
Think I need to look at a way of improving that or get myself some groovy anti-glare glasses for night driving...NOT!

NDG.jpg


Dave
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Aaaaahh! The good old anti-depressants! It's getting to that time of year again, I must find mine and start using them again.
 
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