Easy lightbulb question

[notbillcosby]

Here is a picture of the back of my old coin door and the two little lightbulbs that light up the QUARTER letters on the front. How can I wire those lights up? I'm sure I can't just run the two wires to a plug. I have a functioning fluorescent tube running for my marquee, can I wire these bulbs in parallel with the wires going to each end of the fluorescent?

[lilshawn]

no.

the voltage is way TOO HIGH.

the voltage you do need to hook up to them is dependent on the bulbs. (likely 12 volts or 5 volts) if you remove the bulb and look for a marking (44 or 151 etc) we can tell you what you need to do.

of course you could always replace the bulbs with a known voltage and wire the appropriately.

[notbillcosby]

of course you could always replace the bulbs with a known voltage and wire the appropriately.

Let's do that one. Where do I start? I was thinking about rigging up a couple of those little night lights behind it.. it'd look super goofy from the inside, but it'd sure get the job done.

[PL1]

of course you could always replace the bulbs with a known voltage and wire the appropriately.

Let's do that one. Where do I start? I was thinking about rigging up a couple of those little night lights behind it.. it'd look super goofy from the inside, but it'd sure get the job done.

You can get LED drop in replacements for the wedge-base lamps.

Both Paradise Arcade and Twisted Quarter carry what you need.

You can wire them for 12V (#161 lamp) or 5V. (#555 lamp, which originally ran on 6.3V)


Scott

[DaOld Man]

You may be able to get the bulbs from Auto Zone or Advanced Auto (auto parts store).
Take one of the bulbs and tell the guy you want one with the same base, except make sure it is 12 volts.

[notbillcosby]

I guess I'm really more interested in how to wire the bulbs up. I'm sure it's a stupid question, but Google isn't much help so I must not be typing the right keywords. Something needs to happen between the bulb and the wall outlet other than just running wires from the bulb to the outlet, yes? All the instructions I find on google about wiring a bulb in to AC just shows how to attach the two wires from your wall plug/cable into a bulb socket for a lamp. Is there something magical going on inside a socket, resistor-wise or something, that I could just wire into the little bulb socket in my coin door so i could attach a power cord to them? I'd like them to turn on when my main power strip is switched on in the cabinet.

[Nephasth]

Start with the basics...

http://www.autoshop101.com/trainmodules/electricity/elec101.html

http://www.autoshop101.com/trainmodules/elec_circuits/circ101.html

[DaOld Man]

If you use 12 volt bulbs, you will need 12 volts.
You can get 12 volts from the PC power supply, or you can use a "wall wart" that converts the 120 volts to 12 volts. The 12 volts can be AC or DC, incandescent bulbs dont care.
Then it is simply wiring the two bulb sockets in parallel. then wire to the 12 volt source.

Check you this pic, connect the two bulb sockets as shown, then the two wires connect to the power supply.
Do not connect the bulb sockets directly to 120 Volt AC! Unless the sockets and bulbs are rated at 120 Volts (which they are probably not), it can be a very dangerous shock hazard, due to the sockets insulation not rated for that high voltage.

Feel free to ask if you have any more questions, thats what we do here...

[notbillcosby]

If you use 12 volt bulbs, you will need 12 volts.
You can get 12 volts from the PC power supply, or you can use a "wall wart" that converts the 120 volts to 12 volts. The 12 volts can be AC or DC, incandescent bulbs dont care.
Then it is simply wiring the two bulb sockets in parallel. then wire to the 12 volt source.

Boom! That answered everything I needed to know. Thank you!

[Firepro4Life]

I'm looking to add lights to the coin door of my 60-in-1. i have 12V lights, I just need to wire them to the power supply. Does anyone know if pre-made harnesses are made for this? if i have to do it myself, what gauge wire should I use?