Wiring for a large headlamp to my Billy

KjellAn · Post by **KjellAn** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:36 pm

I have bought two large headlamps for my Billy, and I want to controll the light with a switch conneted to a 9volt battery put inside the frame. There are enough place inside the frame together with the r/c receiver.

I think the wiring should fit inside a small brasstube and then to be attached to the outside of the smokebox. And then inside the frame back to the switch and battery.

The question is how to fix the brasstube to smokebox. If I drill small holes in the smokebox to fix the brasstube with solder, will the soldering inside the smokebox resist the heat from the engine and the exhaustgases from the gasburner?

MDLR · Post by **MDLR** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:48 pm

First question: why use 9 volts? Why not use an LED and 3 volts?

The trick is to use the brass tube as one of the two conductors, and the wire up the middle as the other. I'd be tempted to make a "saddle" out of brass strip and fasten that to the smokebox with a small BA bolt fitting into a tapped hole, but if you're using the saddle tank to hide the batteries, solder the brass tube inside the tank - that should keep it rigid enough.

bluewater1150 · Post by **bluewater1150** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:59 pm

Kjell

I'm contemplating doing the same to my Silver Lady. The only area I'm not 100% about is where the 2.5mm copper tube meets the lamp. Ideally it would bend away from the smokebox/chimney and into the rear of the lamp casing. One leg of the led is connected to the copper pipe and the other leg onto the single wire carried inside the pipe. At the other end of the pipe - connections onto the supply. If the pipe is connected into the lamp, bent to follow the curves of the smokebox and boiler and/or tank - and secured at the after end - it should be secure enough - add one 'saddle' mid route and it will be fairly solid. That's the theory...

Cheers
Elliot
8500
Northumberland

MDLR · Post by **MDLR** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 11:41 pm

On my Jack, the copper tube was soldered to the "bracket" that the lamp was soldered to (it's a white metal lamp with a flat base). One leg of the LED was turned down and soldered to the bracket: the other leg was soldered to the wire.

KjellAn · Post by **KjellAn** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:15 am

I have a 16 volt lamp (no LEDs), and the illumination is rather nice using a 9 volts battery. And I am using the brass pipe as one of the conduktors.

I think of soldering a thinn brass strip to the pipe, but would also like not to use a "large" BA-bolt. I would prefer a 1 mm brass wire soldered to the smokebox instead.

Therefore the question about resistance of the soldering to the heat inside the smokebox.

MDLR · Post by **MDLR** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:32 am

Fine - I understand where you're coming from! When I said "Small BA" 1 was thinking 14 or 16BA which are very small.............

GTB · Post by **GTB** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 1:11 pm

KjellAn:62872 wrote: I think of soldering a thinn brass strip to the pipe, but would also like not to use a "large" BA-bolt. I would prefer a 1 mm brass wire soldered to the smokebox instead.

Therefore the question about resistance of the soldering to the heat inside the smokebox.

Drill a small hole each side of the electrical conduit, bend up a piece of suitable wire (or narrow strip) into a U shape, solder it over the conduit, push the ends through the holes, then bend them over inside the smokebox.

If you press on the outside and use a wiping motion to bend the tails, the fitting will be quite tight.

If you want to get more elaborate, you can drill the holes a bit further out and put a couple of extra bends in the wire/strip to simulate a conduit clip.

Soft solder will be weak at those sorts of temperatures and cleaning off the steam oil to get it to stick would be a real pain ..........

Regards,
Graeme

MDLR · Post by **MDLR** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:31 pm

The other alternative would be to use a split pin, with the copper pipe sitting in the "head" and the "tails" opened out inside the smoke box.

KjellAn · Post by **KjellAn** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 8:32 pm

Thank you all for good advices.

I was afraid that the heat, moisture and oildamp inside the smokebox would harm the soldering.

Therefore I will try to make a nonsolder connection - a brass wire with a loop on the inside of the smokebox and then solder the wire to the pipe on the outside. The pipe and soldered parts on the outside will then be painted in the same color as the smokebox.

I will try to put some pictures of the engine with new headlamps here when the job is done.

KjellAn · Post by **KjellAn** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 5:32 pm

Here is a picture of the headlamp and the brasspipe attached to the smokebox.

The wires then goes by a pipe attached to the inside of the frame back to a on-off-on-switch and a 9 volts battery placed next to the R/C-receiver.

MDLR · Post by **MDLR** » Sat Dec 24, 2011 7:43 pm

Nice neat job!

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Wiring for a large headlamp to my Billy

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