PART II - The Good Old Days Are Here.....Right Now.
So with the poor condition of the wiring and the ballast looking...
... not all that great I didn't have any confidence in it. I decided I would not only rewire the light fixture but also replace the ballast. My quest for a new ballast turned onto just that, a quest, since the markings on it were mostly unreadable. After having no luck with our local electrical supply houses I was referred to a commercial sign company. I took the ballast along with the light tube it was going to power and try to find a replacement. That's when I was told that fluorescent lights were being phased out and I probably wouldn't be able to replace the tube in a few years, even if I could find a new ballast. I asked what are all the sign makers going to do since most of their signs have fluorescents? Right then is when I was suddenly yanked into the 21st century. It was suggested that I should re-equip my sign with...
...these little gizmos,
LED's.
Light
Emitting
Diodes (invented less than 5 miles away on campus of the University of Illinois by Professor Nick Holonyak, Jr) That's what all the sign makers are doing so I decided I'd jump into the 21st century also. Besides lasting for roughly 50,000 hours, they operate cooler and with less electricity, making them economical to leave on 24/7/365
They come in a long string like Christmas tree lights and I had to get a ballast to power them.
As you can see, the new ballast is much smaller and lighter in weight compared with the old ballast since it's output is only 12V.
I also liked the suggestion from Garage Journal board members
Nuts and
Bob Heine back in February to use flat plugs...
...that I cut...
...from a sacrificial power strip, white to match the wall color. I now had all the components to update the Gulf sign.
First thing I did was to power up the LEDs to make sure I had everything wired correctly.
Next they were placed into the light housing...
... to get an idea of how much room they needed.
I used painters tape to temporarily attach them.
Once they were all in place I assembled the light cover and powered it up to see how critical LED placement was. Note the ballast is still outside the light fixture. It turned out that a general dispersal pattern was fine. It looks like I got very even light distribution with no dark areas. Satisfied that general LED placement was OK, I was ready to install the ballast. Just before doing that...
... I installed a pair of maple wood blocks on the back of the housing to serve as spacers. The walls of the barn have raised ribs and once the light was hung on the wall...
... it needed to be raised in order to straddle one of those ribs. Here you can see how the light housing is raised up by the wood blocks below it.
Next the ballast was installed but before it was wired I decided to I needed to drill the mounting holes on the wall. Since the light fixture has all curved surfaces it would be difficult to hang it square with no place to use a level, so I created a flat, reference surface.
With either end of this small board clamped the same distance from the bottom of the light fixture, I could put a level on the board and it would reference whether the whole fixture was cocked to one side or not.
With the wall mounting holes done, the fixture was brought back to the bench...
...and the ballast power cord wired...
...using a strain relief clamp on the back.
The LEDs were wired and placed into the housing around the ballast...
... then checked again...
...once more with everything in place before permanently installing the LEDs. The LED circuit boards had 3M adhesive strips on the back of them.
Once this release paper was peeled away from the back of the circuit board it could then be fastened to the housing.
I cleaned the surface where the strips would contact the housing...
...before fastening them. I cleaned using 3M General Purpose Cleaner #08984 and put it on a Q tip as seen circled in red. It's a small fussy step, but one that will insure the best possible results since I'm using an adhesive.
One last step was to place some silicone into the small holes in each circuit board, seen here circled in red. That's my back up in case the adhesive fails at some point in the future, the silicone will hold the board in place.
With everything completed, this is what the new installation looks like when done....
...these are the parts that were replaced, not needed anymore.
With the light installed on the wall you can see that center raised rib that necessitated the wood blocks to set the fixture out from the wall.
With the LEDs I've managed to greatly enhance the usefulness and safety of the old sign. It brightens up and adds interest to what was a pretty drab wall. This was all new ground for me but in the end I'm very pleased with the results.
So the benches are all clean now...
...just in time for a new project.
Standby for that one. Thanks again everyone.
Thomas
We sold it just after that and I got involved in FF1600 cars.
