I am building a Tamiya sherman (56014 FO) and while installing the light unit, one of the tiny bulbs broke. I talked with Tamiya and they onlly have the entire light unit as a harness for someting in the neighborhood of $40.00, they said just replcae it with one from an electronics store. Great idea, but they didn't know what voltage, plus these lights are ridiculously tiny. I thought they were LED's, but it looks like they have a filament, plus they are made out of glass. If anybody knows where i can get these lights, or has one they want to get rid of, I'll pay. Any help would be great.

Can you post pics? And are you SURE it is not an LED? LEDs have a small wire going to the other side that appears as a fillament. I bet it is an LED. The reason I ask is because I have a few leftovers from a Tamiya 18 wheeler and I would not be surprised if they use the same parts in different lighting kits. If it fits it's yours.

here is a couple of photos. the bulb itself measures 1.3mm in diameter, and about 3mm long

Furious-sun, I'm in the same boat as you, so be sure to share your solution. [] I need one for a Sherman and for a Pershing, but I was unable to find anything small enough at Radio Shack. [&o]

I thought about drilling out the holes in the back of both headlights and replacing the originals with slightly larger bulbs, but I was unsure if it would cause more problems.

Jason

One option I am considering is trying what is called a "grain-of-sand" or "starlight" bulb. It seems that they are pretty common among model railroaders. But I need to know the voltage, because railroaders use mostly 12V bulbs and I have seen several websites showing the bulbs also available in lower voltages.

It may also be a high intesity strobe bulb. By the way it flashes in videos that I have seen, the speed and intesity of the bulb leads me to think that.

You may actually have to check electronci stores as well, even Radio Shack. Both of you might want to contact Backyard Armor and some of the other tank groups as I am quite certain you two can't be the only two to run into this problem.

Guys:

Glad to know I'm not the only one who busted a bulb. But I did buy a spare harness, unfortunately it was for a Pershing and the two are NOT compatible. I'm not even sure the bulbs are the same voltage. I want to test my Sherman to get the output voltage to the lighting array, as all the bulbs are in series, and going from the supply voltage of the MF unit you can make a safe guess at the bulb voltage. The bulbs on the Pershing array are wired oddly, the front two in series, and those in parallel with the rear one, so I doubt they are the same voltage, even if they are the same size.

You CAN short the broken bulb leads, and the remaining four are quite a bit brighter, but I didn't run mine for long because I did not want to blow any for over-voltage.

Karen ( aka GirlTankette) at the AAF may be able to get you a replacement array for less than the Tamiya list, you can contact her at [email protected]

I did look into finding micro-LED's to make a replacement array, but cannot find any 1.65mm LED's (3mm is the smallest standard size) and the next smaller ones are rather expensive SMT ones, which are not easy to solder. Anyone finds a source for 1.65mm LED's in white, let me know?

WhiteWolf

Where does this bulb mount on the tank?

Wolf, I can' find any smaller LED's than the 3mm either. But I keep seeing those mini bulbs I mentioned earlier, just found some online that are rated at 1.5V I am just afraid to screw up the electronics in the tank if I use the wrong type of bulb/voltage.

Those bulbs look a lot like model locomotive headlight bulbs! In fact, the ones I have in front of me right now are about 1x3mm. Darned if I can't remember what loco they came from, though.....

Here's one link: [link=http://www.miniatronics.com/]Miniatronics[/link]

subaru, the bulbs mount in small headlights and tail light assemblies. And one of the rear tail light assemblies has two bulbs in it, so they have to be tiny so they fit inside the assemblies.

Do these look too big? [] They are for a Tamiya 1:14 semi truck:

http://cgi.ebay.com/TAMIYA-1-14-R-C-...QQcmdZViewItem

Those are the ones I have left over, LEDs. I am sure that they didn't use strobe bulbs in that application, I was thinking it might have been the flash for the barrel as it does not look like an LED.

Furious:

If you can wait a day, I'll gather my sherman gear up (its a tad scattered from turret renovations) and I'll put a meter on the output when the lighting array is powered. That will tell us the total voltage to the series, and as there are 5 bulbs, how much each bulb gets.

If I had to make a snap-judgement, and it was my own array, I'd say the 1.5 grain-of-wheat units should be fine, as the stock pack is rated 7.2 volts, and that divided by 5 bulbs is 1.44 volts. I've had mine on briefly with only 4 bulbs in the series, so I'd guess the supply to the array is less than the max pack supply. I'll also try hooking in one of the bulbs that I surplus'd from the Pershing light array, and see how that performs (as I have 3 bulbs harvested there)

icecreamslick:

Those are LED's, the Sherman and Pershing lights are proper bulbs, not LED's. I talked to someone about making SMT-LED harnesses, but they would have been more than double the Tamiya price.

WhiteWolf

Wolf, That would be great! That way I can track down some replacements for all us unfortunates who have broken a bulb.

furious-sun
I opened the light harness and studied long time ago. it is hard to explain the design details. the pershing one is more complicated than sherman. voltage from DMD is not 7.2V.
the bulb you need is called wheet bulb for HO trains. it is 1.5V 30mA 1.2mm dia, the brand I use is Miniatronics. Model 18-C03-10.
I use those bulbs for the lights units for tiger1 and king tiger too, BUT NOT DIRECTLY CONNECT TO 7.2V BATTERY.

Tom

I found some of those exact lights at my LHS (Hobbytown USA), they were $10 for a 10 pack. Hooked one up yesterday and will test it out soon. Thanks for the info. Also thanks to CapnCrunch for the link direct to the Minatronics sight. You can get the same lights from them. I'll let everyone know if the bulb works, cause it apears to be a perfect match.