One of our members showed an upgraded Jin Machine Hit and Miss....one of the upgrades was the addition of an LED indicator light that shows when the switch is ON. I would like to install a similar one to save batteries as I have a bad habit of leaving the switch on draining the 3 AA batteries onboard.
12 volt LED indicators seem widely available, but I have not found any that are in the same range as our 4.5 volt battery sets on the Hit and Miss engines by Jin.
Any advice on source appreciated.
Rog
Hi Rog, Many of the LED bulbs will work on much lower than 12 volts like the little screw in bulbs that fit and work in a Jensen generator lamp post. At low speed they flicker with A/C current but in Jin's engine they should work fine. I would take a look on eBay or Amazon since Radio Shack is no more. A bulb a lot smaller than the flashlight bulb would be ideal for your power indicator lamp. At a dollar store you might find a string of left over battery powered Christmas lamps that are very small LED's that may be ideal for your purpose. If you don't have any luck, let me know and I'll chop up a little Christmas set.
Gil
Thanks Gil...if a 12 volt will work, there are ample single ones for small change on Amazon and they even have nice beveled bases for the LED...should look fine on this engine.
Thanks,
Rog
As Gil says, they will work on much lower voltage...
Most small 2 legged LEDs will light from 2.5-3V, so you should have no problem sourcing one for this project.
(Which i by the way will go through with my own as well,as it would be cool with a "reminder" on there.)
Gil and Jan...thanks for the response...I should have no trouble finding LED I need if 12V works at lower voltage. Even if a total fail, I see them sold in pairs for the grand sum of 0.99 USD...
As an aside, I picked up from a Ron Walters YouTube video that he prefers to run these little engines on 3 volts vs. 4.5 and substitutes a dummy (AA size) for one of the normal working AA batteries. I did some browsing on eBay and found a seller offering the dummy AA battery for 0.99 USD with free shipping. How anyone can make money doing it that cheaply I don't know, would seem materials and postage would exceed that! I ordered one and will try running my Hit/Miss on the lower voltage...not sure why, but if it saves the Hall Effect Sensor or the little ignition box inside the engine base, it's worth it.
Rog
Howdy Rog
I linked you a flashing red LED from All Electronics in the other thread on this, but here is a bright red LED from the same source that's spec sheet suggests it will work between 2 and 4.5 volts so it ought to be perfect for this application.
BTW ... an empty .308 case works fine as a replacement for a AA battery. I've replaced the middle battery in my pack with one and am running right now!
Hope this helps!
Good stuff Christian - I'm challenged in many fields, electronics being one......this definitely helps!
Hello, it's me again.
To provide these additional information on leds.
Excuse me for my English
Regards Christian.
https://youtu.be/U5UJtKRQWTo
Gil and Jan...thanks for the response...I should have no trouble finding LED I need if 12V works at lower voltage. Even if a total fail, I see them sold in pairs for the grand sum of 0.99 USD...
As an aside, I picked up from a Ron Walters YouTube video that he prefers to run these little engines on 3 volts vs. 4.5 and substitutes a dummy (AA size) for one of the normal working AA batteries. I did some browsing on eBay and found a seller offering the dummy AA battery for 0.99 USD with free shipping. How anyone can make money doing it that cheaply I don't know, would seem materials and postage would exceed that! I ordered one and will try running my Hit/Miss on the lower voltage...not sure why, but if it saves the Hall Effect Sensor or the little ignition box inside the engine base, it's worth it.
Rog
I am not convinced 3 volts is needed for these. It is true that the earlier blue anodized engines had a gold anodized ignition module that was quite prone to failure with voltage too high. Even that one when wired and grounded properly will last a long time. I have one a year and a half old with quite a few hours on it and it still works fine and won't heat up even after a full hour of running with 3 AA batteries. The new set up is still considerably better on the silver engines.
Has anyone had a newer module as appears in the silver engines fail due to using 4.5 volts?
I have not heard of this and the boxes do not get hot with 3 AA batteries. In addition, your batteries weaken beyond what will make a good spark much more quickly with 3 volts from 2 AA batteries.
Gil