Bulbs & Wiring Diagrams

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Wiring Diagrams & Electrical Parts

This page will have suggested methods for wiring, lighting and controls. Just basic stuff, no electronics on this page.

I will add more part numbers and sources of parts as time goes on.

Brain & Chest Light Bulbs

Baynesville Electronics carries some of the harder to find flashing bulbs that most regular electronics stores don't carry at discount prices.They're out of Baltimore, MD. Here is their web site although you can't order from online. http://www.baynesvilleelectronics.com/index2.ivnu

The bulbs I used below are rated at 14 volts, so they last longer on 12 volts and they are plenty bright at 12 volts. If you want same voltage bulbs for the brain lights they have those too. At $6.99 a box for the chest bulbs, I got a couple of boxes to have extras.

Brain bulbs: 14v flashing screw-in bulb trade lamp # 258 $11.99 (box of 10) Globe style bulb.

Small chest light bulbs: 14v flashing bayonet mount trade lamp # 256 $6.99 (box of 10) Straight style bulb to fit chest light sockets.

Contact Trish (or other staff) at Baynesville (410) 823-0082

Tell them you are with the B9 Robot Builders Club and you won't get charged a handling charge of $4.50 if order is under $25.00

VISA and Master Card accepted.

The lights are "flashing" type bulbs so you just connect power to them and they flash. If you like original stuff they are what was used in the original robot, no fancy electronics to make them flash (not that there is anything wrong with that!). You can wire them all together and connect to a transformer rather than a battery since they require more power due to the number of them. You can use one of those 12 volt landscape lighting transformers that comes mounted in a box with a power cord and all you do is connect your light wires to 2 connections on it & it has a timer on it you can set for automatic operation. You can get cheap lighting sets at Home Depot. For starters I used an old used one that someone threw away.

The sockets I will be using for the brain screw in Globe style lights above I got from Radio Shack, their #272-360, pkgs of 4. The sockets have solder tabs for wire connections and a mounting bracket. The mounting bracket will have to be cut off and filed flush to use it in the brain finger lights (see procedure on Brain Cup & light Rods page). The socket can be wired and inserted into the holders.

In the Construction Tips section on the clubsite under Robot Reference there is a dimension drawing for making the Brain Light Rods and holders by Craig R. The tube pieces are slipped into one another and soldered together. Those dimensions are what I am going to use, I'll document that construction when I get there. The sockets will fit into the 7/16" tube holder portion once the bracket is removed.

Click on diagram for larger size.

Baynesville flashing & non-flashing bulbs. Please note that the TX-126 All Electronics transformers are no longer available. They are a surplus place so items come and go. You can however use one or more other 12 vac transformers sized to handle the load.

The brain in the above diagram has 3 non-flashing globe lights and 3 non-flashing lights behind the chest buttons. They are number 57 bulbs (bayonet base). I found them in a surplus store $2. 00 for a box of 10. I'm sure if you ask that Baynesville has these too.

57's are rated 12 volts @ 0,24a

The single non-flashing light in the programming bay needs to be the bayonet base like the belly lights since it fits in the same type socket and you can use an older style 12 volt automotive bulb for that. I found one in my junk box.

This is an interior view of the chest light sockets. I wired each of them separately so that I can easily remove one if ever necessary. They will be wired into a terminal strip. The two large chest lights are the reproductions that are no longer available. I used large rubber grommets to hold them in place and the standard Dialight or Sylvania sockets with red and green lenses and a grommet ground down to hold them inside the large reproduction light holders.

Please note that the TX-126 All Electronics transformers are no longer available. They are a surplus place so items come and go. You can however use other 12 vac transformers sized to handle the load.

DPDT Switches

For the arms with slip clutches(instead of end limit switches), I used the Momentary On-Off-On type. These should be available through hardware stores, automotive stores and surplus stores.

Robot Mechanical Sounds?

The mechanical sound of the robot has some aspects of switches actuating off and on. Some have believed that this sound was made by rotary electromechanical step switches. There were lots of these in the 60's and you can still get many of them today. Below are some pictures of one I had saved. The cams are adjustable and typically use the common syncronous timer motors as drives. Actually these do give some switching sounds but they are fairly quiet. The motors are virtually silent and the "micro switches" with actuator arms being driven from the rotating cams make a very quiet "clicking" noise. And certainly no "clacking" noise. You won't be getting any "clickity-clackity sounds out of these. The old electromechanical pinball machies had rotary motorized pulse generators that made more "mechanical noise" than these switches. They typically don't have the rollers on them and the motors on them are shaded pole and somewhat noisy, especially with some age on them.

This is an old step controller. I changed the motor on it to a 5 rpm (rev per min) from a 5 rph (rev per hour) that was on it originally.

All the cams are adjustable, this is the old fashioned way of sequencing stuff. Still I like the electromechanical items that have a visual and sound to the operation.

The very little bit of switching sound it does make could be part of the robot sounds, but I really doubt it.