thankyou to all you guys are champs with your help I could finally get these working!

The semaphores are hooked up with 12V with the flashing indicators still in place. the bulbs in the semaphores are running at about 6V (after resistor) and blink with the indicators! couldn't be happier

I don't know how long this system is going to last but hopefully it will go on til the very end

Sorry I didn't take any pics of the process, honestly I didn't have much faith in my plans

sorry about the bad pics, they were taken in the dark with a long exposure.

here's another pic

sweet

now tell meexactly how u got this going...:duh

perhaps if it's helpful I will do a proper write up... when I get the dash indicator working. I'm also trying to add hazard lights

it wasnt hard, just yr12 physics. more work tomorrow!

Yep I'll second that, I'd be real interested in a write up on how you did this, its one of the many things I want to do with mine. Any chance of a wiring diagram too, or am I asking too much now?:thumb

I'm probably being dumb but where does the resistor physically fit? I don't have my semaphores yet so I haven't been able to have a look.

Great work, Bug looks nice, I reckon the dark shots work well given what you're showing us.

Cheers, Greg

I decided to leave out the dash indicator and hazard lights. I'm considering dividing the arrow in the dash to halves, and put 2 LEDs in there so it shows which way's signal is on. but that's later...

disclaimer: this is what I did, I know there is a better way of doing this so if you find a better way you have to let everybody know

My car was retrofitted with a flasher unit and indicators. When I bought it, the wires went from
Fuse box - flasher unit - dash indicator light - indicator switch - lights

If I hooked the semaphores straight to the lights they would go on/off and would be "flapping wings" and look ridiculous. I needed constant power for the semaphores, and alternate power for the light bulbs.

my brain came up with 2 plans:
1. fuse box - indicator switch - semaphores
fuse box - flasher unit - 2 relays that would activate each side depending on which side is selected

I didn't go ahead with this plan because my flasher unit is old and has a very slow flash rate. I also didn't know if the relays could stand the on/off/on/off pattern, but now thinking about it I don't see why not.

here's my 2nd plan, a very rough 'paint' wiring diagram
instead of 2 relays I'd have 2 new flasher units as shown

[Edited on 30-4-2005 by Lams]

I was lucky that whoever disconnected the semaphores has decided to leave the original wires there. I worked out which wire was which by unplugging everything in the car, as the colour codes on the wires were all resprayed by the previous blue paintjob.

I used 2 3.3ohm 1W resistors on each side initially to make the whole semaphore 6V, and I did not plan to make the semaphore bulb flash.

but after testing, I found 6V too weak for these old semaphores to work. I decided that I was going to make the bulb 6V but the semaphore would use 12V.

After taking the thing apart, it wasn't so hard to 'mod' the semaphore. There are 2 terminals. dave becker told me that the bottom one is the power input, and the top one is to ground the indicator light on the speedo.

I changed the black cloth covered wire which powers the bulb from the bottom terminal to the top. Then I used electrical tape to tape over the top terminal's metal plate thing (which touches the pin). This pic doesn't show what I did but it shows the 2 terminals and the 2 wires that I'm talking about.

[Edited on 30-4-2005 by Lams]

the resistors are now used to drop the voltage for the semaphore bulb. and that is wired with the rest of the blinking indicator lights so now it's a 6V blinking semaphore!

The rest of it is pretty easy... hope this would help you guys out!

I love indicating

now THIS, is something that I really wanna do on my bug too! So it doens't do the old 6V coils (in the semaphores) any harm by running 12V through it? How did you physically run the resistors parallel in the circuit?

Hate to be the party pooper but if my understanding of what you have done is correct your semaphores aren't going to last long.

Am i correct that you have made the semaphore go up on 12 volts but run the globe on 6 volts. If so your coils will not last long at all. Especially if you get stuck waiting to turn somewhere for any long length of time. Has been done before and unfortunateluy the coil can't handle the 12volts and burns out.

You can get them rewired to 12volts but last time i checked it was $100 a coil. Not cheap. You just need to go to an electric motor rewinder and get a quote. Probably cheaper nowadays.

Basically what makes it 12 or 6 volt is the amount of wire and it's thickness in the coil. Essentially the thing is a big magnet. Give it power and it activates it. I think.

What you have done for the globe is very good. Most people drop the semaphore itself with resistors and run 12 volt globes which quickly heat up and very quickly melt the lenses.

Yours look really bright. Are you sure they are 6 volt at the globe?

If i have misunderstood in anyway please let me know. Also keep us posted of any potential problems you have encountered.

hi typeone,

Yeah I do worry about the semaphores that they won't last long like this. I couldn't get them working with 6V so I tried 12V and it works. Maybe I should try to drop that to about 8V... that should be safer

the globes are only bright because when I took the pic it was night time, and so I used a 2.5sec exposure. You can see how much brighter the front lights are. It's been a week, so far, no problems!

thanks for your input!

looks good lams
look forward to seeing em in action next weekend at klub fest!