Hello!
I recently purchased an old Kenwood Model Eleven GX off E-Bay in excellent condition.... been looking for one for a little while now as I love the looks of the vintage stuff.
Not only is this unit beautiful, but it sound awesome with a very warm sound and power to spare.
Anyways, I am stripping it down to recap it and do a major cleaning as it needs it!
All the bulbs were working but it seems that during the dismantling process that a couple of them are no longer working...
I know that I have read here or somewhere else about people changing these out with LED's and would like to do the same with all the bulbs...will also cut down on the heat as well!
The bulb voltages that are in the unit according to the service manual are 8 volts 0.3a.
Can anybody please guide me in the right direction so that I can do a mod on this with proven results?
Thanks a bunch!
Roland
I recently purchased an old Kenwood Model Eleven GX off E-Bay in excellent condition.... been looking for one for a little while now as I love the looks of the vintage stuff.
Not only is this unit beautiful, but it sound awesome with a very warm sound and power to spare.
Anyways, I am stripping it down to recap it and do a major cleaning as it needs it!
All the bulbs were working but it seems that during the dismantling process that a couple of them are no longer working...
I know that I have read here or somewhere else about people changing these out with LED's and would like to do the same with all the bulbs...will also cut down on the heat as well!
The bulb voltages that are in the unit according to the service manual are 8 volts 0.3a.
Can anybody please guide me in the right direction so that I can do a mod on this with proven results?
Thanks a bunch!
Roland
LED's can be good as replacements for filament bulbs but as always there are pitfalls...
If the bulbs are fed from AC (a winding on the tranny) then fitting LED's could give noticeable flicker. You would also have to add limiting resistors to each LED. You could easily rig up a DC supply from an AC winding though. LED current requirements are tiny, a real high efficiency LED is bright on just a few milliamps. You would be looking at LED's with outputs of over 1.5cd for any panel lighting duty.
Getting the right LED would be crucial in terms of brightness and colour and would require considerable trial and error to get something visually pleasing. All do-able impossible to just say, yes fit these......
If you want to try it then get a couple of high brightness while LED's and wire them to a resistor and 9 volt battery and poke them into the bulb placements and see how it all looks and whether its going to work visually.
If the bulbs are fed from AC (a winding on the tranny) then fitting LED's could give noticeable flicker. You would also have to add limiting resistors to each LED. You could easily rig up a DC supply from an AC winding though. LED current requirements are tiny, a real high efficiency LED is bright on just a few milliamps. You would be looking at LED's with outputs of over 1.5cd for any panel lighting duty.
Getting the right LED would be crucial in terms of brightness and colour and would require considerable trial and error to get something visually pleasing. All do-able impossible to just say, yes fit these......
If you want to try it then get a couple of high brightness while LED's and wire them to a resistor and 9 volt battery and poke them into the bulb placements and see how it all looks and whether its going to work visually.
Thanks for that info!
You do raise an interesting point about the possibility that the LED's might flicker.
What if each LED had a rectifier along with the current limiting resistor?
Roland
You do raise an interesting point about the possibility that the LED's might flicker.
What if each LED had a rectifier along with the current limiting resistor?
Roland
You would see the flicker, particularly when viewed indirectly... like looking at an old TV out of the corner of your eye. Adding a rectifier and cap to derive DC is no problem... the big problem is finding experimentally LED's that you are happy with illumination and colour wise. LED's in clear packages tend to be brightest but also have the narrowest viewing angle. LED's in diffuse packages give more even illumination but are less bright overall.
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