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Voltage Stabilizer

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L

LLAngus

Jedi Knight
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Where is the voltage stabilizer on a 73 BGT? How do you determine if it is defective? How much are they?

Also, good note--I am going to be able to keep the 77 B.
 
Under the dash on the left (port) side. just above and to the left of the steering column on the vertical part of the firewall. A quick and dirty way to check it is to check supply voltage at the fuel gauge green/lt.green wire. 10V and the stabiliser is working.

RE: 77B.... YAY!!
 
Don't forget a stubby Phillip's head if you want to remove it.
Rick
 
wray lemke designed a solid state stabilizer called the wraybilizer, plans on Tony's website I think.
 
I have some what of a background in electronics so I'll check out Tony's site. I am trying to post pictures of my 77 B and if I figure out the sequence they will get on the forum. I love the red colors that have shown up on the forum and will contact the members and find out the red color they used.
 
I have also worked on stabilizers. I have a PDF that can help you with a solid-state replacement or (where possible) reconditioning your original one. See:
https://home.mindspring.com/~purlawson/files/SmithsVoltageStabilizer.pdf

Also, this device is really a fast switching set of points that creates an average close to 10V. You won't be able to read the device's output with a digital meter. If your stabilizer is still switching well, an analog meter (with a needle) may be able to display the stabilizer output. However, I've seen some that switch so slow there was no way to show the average output.
 
Thanks for the great posts. I will go down to the local RS and pickup the transitor. I haven't done any electronics fabrication in a while and this will be a great project for the cold time. Again thanks for the great posts. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cool.gif
 
Contact Wray Lemke - he does a great job with them & even makes a "Wray-bilizer"...it has a little red LED on it so you can look up under your dash to see if its working.
 
I don't believe you are going to find the regulator at the local RS. I have a couple left, all I ask is for postage. I need to order some more, they are 75 cents in bulk but I have to order $25 worth of stuff at the same time.

Drop me a line with your address and I'll shoot one out there to you.
 
Wray's right, RS won't have the single 10V regulator chip. However, you will be able to buy an LM-317T (negative ground) adjustable regulator and resistors from them if you just can't wait. Plans for using that chip are in the PDF I provided the link to above. The u7810 10V fixed regulator is available from sources online like https://www.mouser.com which doesn't have a minimum order size if you want to buy the single chip solution.
 
Doug, I didn't know Mouser had them. Thanks for the tip. I just don't buy many components these days. The era of doing a lot of board level repair is pretty much over.
 
Mouser is a great resource since Radio Shack sells so few components these days. Mouser will sell to anyone, accepts credit cards, has no line-item or purchase order minimums, and their shipping charges are not unreasonable. My only complaint is that it's sometimes hard to use their online catalog search features.
 
Many of these things can be found for really good prices at Electronix Express, https://www.elexp.com/. You can get both negative and positive versions of the 7810 voltage regulator chip, although elexp may not have both. It's simple to use; just connect the input to the +12V battery, output to the circuit you wish to power at 10V, and the third terminal to ground. I don't remember if the tab is ground, so be sure to determine whether it is before bolting it to a grounded metal surface. By comparison, the original, bimetallic regulator seems really lame.
 
Thanks for the link, I'll certainly check it out. I have yet to find anyone who stocks the negative 10V regulator. It would be nice to have a few of those among the spare parts I keep. Thanks again for the information. On the u7810 I the tab is ground which makes it a very simple installation in most cases.
 
The grounded tab makes life easy, I think the tab on the 317 is hot, which means you have to isolate it, pita. Worth the extra effort to get the 7810...
 
Haha, now you can let it all hang out.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]Woo-hoo! After 3 years I've finally achieved "Member" status! [/QUOTE]
Sounds like an excuse for a party!
 
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