Elect tricky stuff

my personal choice is solder , you can buy solder terminals at the auto electrical wholesaler ,cheap as chips but a strange twist the milatary wont allow soldier on about 90 percent of their jobs and you have to use a special crimping tool . the main problem with crimping is over crimping ,this cuts the wires ,under crimping gives a loose joint building up resistance ; resistance causes heat ; heat causes fire ; as swishy says here comes the prince of darkness cheers don

Am planning to solder the crimp terminals and cover with heatshrink. Have done a few so far and happy with the result. Bought two ballast resistors and both are 1.6 ohms so maybe this is a standard value.

Solder... is great and I love it, BUT without practice it can be more of a liability than anything else. Joints have to be shiny bright and clean and your iron must be hot but bear in mind, because it's very easy for the solder to wick down the cable and make it rigid, it's actually illegal to solder connections on an aeroplane.

Tinning the ends of a wire together and then putting it into a screw connector is also bad practice as the solder will not conform to the screw tip or the recess it's pushing against. What you end up with is little surface area, a lot of high points carrying the current and the screw will back off with some vibration. I have seen this in a number of trailer lights as well as plugs and sockets.

Good quality ratchet crimp pliers can be had for about $30 at Jaycar these days... buy good quality crimps and don't bother with anything else.

Your Lucas regulator is best used with just stripped copper wires. Adding a terminal will just add another connection that could fail

The main thing to remember about a generator is that they don't like to be run at high speed, or they will throw the armature windings.

I have yet to find an easy way of getting a 6 volt starter to engage softly before you apply double the rated input power. A lot of old gear uses a crash type bendix that really suffers when you hit the switch...

have fun

G'day Invested E'
I've just had a 6 volt starter from a 1947 tractor fixed by Gawler Auto Electrics. Bloke said it had a bent armature, and they replaced the brushes and springs. Now it "bangs" into action on 12 volt, which is not good and will likely cause further problems sometime.
Is there any easy way to reduce the voltage when using a 12 volt battery?
Cheers Geoff

G'day Invested E'
I've just had a 6 volt starter from a 1947 tractor fixed by Gawler Auto Electrics. Bloke said it had a bent armature, and they replaced the brushes and springs. Now it "bangs" into action on 12 volt, which is not good and will likely cause further problems sometime.
Is there any easy way to reduce the voltage when using a 12 volt battery?
Cheers Geoff

Gidday Geoff - stick another 6V one under the seat or somewhere cabled in parallel. This will effectively half the current to each one, perfectly off-setting the doubling in voltage. Can take the throw-out of the second one so it doesn't catch on anything, then it will just spin the armature. Even a second 12V one would help to reduce the doubled voltage. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Disregard this ifn U think eye'm fullof it
LOL
If U make a crook connection from the solonoid to the bendix doo dadd
eg: smaller wire etc
would th@ not make for a more gentle application of the Bendix cog
or iz it all wired in as one
12v to starter n 7.23456v to solonoid

Jist thinkn outside the square

WotSayU

Spose a test would tell

Cya
[ch9787]

Sounds like you need a series parrallel switch and 2 X 6 volt batteries, I'm not sure if you can get a 6/12V series parallel switch. The only way I know of reducing voltage other than that is via a resistor, as Swishy pionted out, though a resistor will also draw current.

Out of interest, if it's in a tractor, why don't you just put it back to 6 volts and not worry about getting too technical with trying to reduce voltage. It's not as if you are going to need bright headlights, and a jump starter pack would be pretty easy to knock up.

Well if anyone wants some 6 volt bits ( including some well cooked wiring), I will be having a monster sale soon. My starter is manually pushed in to mesh so hopefully no problems there.
Solder may not be legal on planes but if its is good enough for BigCam and his crew, it is going to be fine on my lorry.

Swishy,
Not a good idea! A crook connection would reduce the volts / amps but will also overheat and could set the vehicle on fire! (Worst case).

Problem is a starter motor is massive current device so not practical to step the power down to 6 volts for it. Only reasonable way would be to run 2x6V batteries to give you a 12 volt charge and accessories but a 6V start. Not even 100% viable as the charge rate when running multiple batteries not perfect. But if they are the same brand and age the difference should be minimal.

While yes a bendix would bang in on 12V the motor will slow it down! So when in the motor should/ would be fine.

Atkipete, think you will find that your starter is a bendix drive also. There are two main types of bendix starters one being the pinion pulled in via solenoid (reasonably modern version). Then the version most likely on a tractor and your truck the pinion is driven in by the spinning of the starter motor.

In the second type no solenoid as the starter button is direct to the heavy duty contacts and typically on the back of the starter.

But I do stand to be corrected!

If U make a crook connection from the solonoid to the bendix doo dadd
Cya
[ch9787]

HELLO, PRINCE OF DARKNESS :'(

Or FIRE :'(