Voltage Stabiliser

[Roland]

I have the tacho removed from my elan just now and this is an opportunity to change out the old style voltage stabiliser for a modern electronic one. However as you can see from the attached photo I have what I guess is a capacitor (orange thing) fitted on the stabiliser plus a condenser on the earth lead.

When I fit the modern stabiliser can I simply dispense the condenser and capacitor?

Tks

Roland

[Andy8421]

Yes. The two capacitors can be thrown away.

They were probably there to suppress noise on a radio. The “stabiliser” has contacts inside that can arc and create radio frequency interference.

[Roland]

Andy,

Ah yes that makes sense, it's only a bimetallic strip in there basically so I guess it could arc.

Tks

Roland

[Hawksfield]

Hi
the latest production of metal can stabilisers have an electronic interior check with suppliers
they are quite common on ebay

[geni]

bonjour,
je crois avoir posé la question mais je n'ai pu trouver le nouveau stabilisateur en électronique ! d'où ma demande ,car je le recherche en idem = copie de l'ancien
merci de vouloir partager

[Andy8421]

bonjour,
je crois avoir posé la question mais je n'ai pu trouver le nouveau stabilisateur en électronique ! d'où ma demande ,car je le recherche en idem = copie de l'ancien
merci de vouloir partager

Geni,
I am afraid my French isn't up replying in French, you will have to use Google translate...

I think all of the voltage stabilisers now for sale are electronic, unless there are a few 'new old stock' units still kicking around. Although they used to command a premium in price over the electromechanical units, the innards of the electronic units cost less than 50p, and I can't imagine anyone would still make an electromechanical version.

The two giveaways are that the advertisement specifies negative or positive earth - the electronic units care, the electromechanical don't, and that the picture shows what is clearly a printed circuit board base instead of the original paxolin base. Here is a typical example:

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/smiths-voltage-regulator-248783/

[Roland]

I was going to order an electronic voltage stabiliser from Moss Europe but they have no stock. I have found a guy on eBay (wynd50) that will take my old stabiliser and fit new electronic internals for not much money.

I did consider doing it myself which cost next to nothing.

Roland

[jeff jackson]

Someone can correct me here I'm sure, but I think the voltage stabiliser or regulator will take the 12 - 14V ish from the supply and regulate to 10V for the instruments.
There are plenty of semiconductor regulators on the market that will regulate over a wide input voltage range to 10V.
Some smoothing capacitors on the input and output and it's done. Many circuits on T'internet if you googly it.
Mine are OK right now but if they ever fail, then I am knocking my own regulator up to go in there.
Regards
Jeff 72 +2

[Andy8421]

Someone can correct me here I'm sure, but I think the voltage stabiliser or regulator will take the 12 - 14V ish from the supply and regulate to 10V for the instruments.
There are plenty of semiconductor regulators on the market that will regulate over a wide input voltage range to 10V.
Some smoothing capacitors on the input and output and it's done. Many circuits on T'internet if you googly it.
Mine are OK right now but if they ever fail, then I am knocking my own regulator up to go in there.
Regards
Jeff 72 +2

Jeff, you are quite correct. I can't find it now, but there is a picture on the net of the innards of an 'electronic stabiliser' which was just a 7810 linear voltage regulator. Most application diagrams for the 7810 show two smoothing capacitors, which you don't really need for this application, but it doesn't hurt.

I posted at some length on this a while back, but the 78XX series of regulators are probably the oldest semiconductor design still in widescale production. About 50 years old now, it is just about period correct for the Elan.