Warning: Atomic load foam core meltdown

Thanks for sharing. 

Double stick foam tape probably would have been a better factory option.  That black foam stuff will almost always breakdown over time- it's the nature of the product.

Fred

Well its there to keep the bulb upright and centered. The foam two sided tape likely wouldn't have faired better, lol. A fishboard square wouldn't have broke the bank. The foil is just Martian overkill.

I'm sorry this has nothing to do with your problem but the flying saucer on the rails is very cool!!

Yes, a Vision line flying saucer on rails would be the bomb.  Imagine the possibilities...  I enjoy your posts Adriatic.  The majority of the time I have no idea what you are talking about, but keep em coming.  Cheers.

Adriatic posted:

I had a light bulb go out on my Looney tunes atomic load car so pressed the plastic tabs on the atomic symbol and uncapped the bulb. The bulb is held upright by a core of black foam with the bulb socket stuck through a hole in it.

That foam has deteriorated to a thick gooey mess. The glue maybe?  It hadn't reacted to or gotten stuck to the plastic yet, but I removed it from both containers with needle nose pliers.

I don't know if other Atomic load  cars have their cores melting, but you may want to look at yours.

There is one chunk of it left here.

 Here you can sort of see what a mess the bulb socket was. The too was so soft it wiped off with a citrus cleaner.

 

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Wrapped columns in a garage that had north facing doors with the black foam plumbers use to avoid car doors and fenders hitting it and being damaged. After about 10 years it began to fall apart like this. Like your "Re-Entry" style Saucer!

Thank you folks.  The cartoon space cars alone weren't "enough".

I had to have a cartoon engine, and caboose too. I could not find a Phantom for under $350 then.

I've got $25 and some change in this and used up nail polish left behind and thick with age, Testors paint.

 It might get birdcage bars if I find a small Tweety Bird. A small Quisp alien riding in it would be neat too though.

With a fresh supply of smoke fluid for the modified fan drive smoke unit, I had them out and running. (It drinks fluid fast)

The nose lights red, and portals glow. The rocket nozzel flashes purple against the smoke. I've posted video and pictures plenty of times. I think the  "flying end of train device" gets overlooked with the rocket around.

I had a set of $1200 studio speakers from the 90s have the foam outer ring disintegrate to dust. It was lying at the bottom of the dust covers. They made big wind till then

Thanks for the heads up!  I have one of these but haven't had it out in a while.  I will be sure to check it out before putting it back on the rails.

-Dave

Adriatic posted:

I had a set of $1200 studio speakers from the 90s have the foam outer ring disintegrate to dust. It was lying at the bottom of the dust covers. They made big wind till then

Had a set of Infinity Monitors do that, sent the woofers to shop in Michigan IIRC for repair. Back to moving air!

Adriatic,

I had a set of EPI speakers and the same thing happened -- disintegrated foam which was suspending the speakers. I found a place online that sold replacement foam pieces and the glue to install them very reasonably and I was able to repair both speakers and get about 5 more years out of them. Got rid of them when we moved in 2007 , and miss their excellent sound quality.

Changing those bulbs to screw in led bulbs will help by eliminating the heat.

NJCJOE posted:

Changing those bulbs to screw in led bulbs will help by eliminating the heat.

Great idea. Do LED bulbs change the blinking rate?

BobbyD posted:

NJCJOE posted:

Changing those bulbs to screw in led bulbs will help by eliminating the heat.

Great idea. Do LED bulbs change the blinking rate?

I believe the blinking feature is built into the bulbs those cars used... to swap to LED's which would be great in terms of removing excess heat from the equation, you'd probably have to install a flash circuit of some sort.  I believe what you'd need is available from Evan's Designs or a similar company and would be small enough to fit in the atomic crates.

Thumbs up for this creation!

There isn't much heat off the bulbs or I wouldve skippes the foil. And the blink IS in the bulb. It has an "natural" offset in flash timing. A police flasher led kit might do a decent job keeping it apparently random.

That rocket is half your fault GR John. Your early smoke unit hop up info, led to bigger smoke unit ports , two levels of switched output so I wasn't smoked out in minutes, and re- regulating the fan to a variable by speed. If the element ever burns out, I'll cram a second one in it 

Bobby, I had the foam issue with the Infinitys too. Sold them for a few hundred, 15 years old and still in need of repair too. With just shy of 500w of Sansui driving them, they would unseat pictures from their nails and walk knick-knacks off shelves...Not a Macintosh, but nice. I should have went Klipsh though.

...Knick knacks; like the TV

Adriatic posted:

Bobby, I had the foam issue with the Infinitys too. Sold them for a few hundred, 15 years old and still in need of repair too. With just shy of 500w of Sansui driving them, they would unseat pictures from their nails and walk knick-knacks off shelves...Not a Macintosh, but nice. I should have went Klipsh though.

...Knick knacks; like the TV

I bet! Nothing like good clean sound.

A friend purchased Danley Sound Labs SH60 horns, I can't even afford the electricity to run them!

You will need blinking LED bulbs I presume (don't know that there is such a thing).  The Lionel light bulb is usually the one with a bi-metallic contact inside that causes it to blink.  Same bulb was used on the Lionel Fire Cars.  

Adriatic,

Can't offer any input on the problem but just wanted to say I enjoy your posts.  Keep them going.

Ed

   Some led do flash. They are usually larger red ones, in my somewhat outdated experience.

   A few small LEDs & chip with a chase light sequence can likely be had for something stupid like .05¢ "at auction". The 3 flashing leds and chase board that I have in the rockets nozzle are from a bicycle reflector type 3v keychain from the Dollar Store. I rectified and regulated the max voltage, another $2.  It worked because I could jump the sequence trigger,but that was only a transistor away.anyhow. That jumper also locked the choice of flash speed. Win win there that time.

 Anyhow, building your own from similar, wiring one of the three lights in the opposite chamber, and having a slight, phase, capacitor or resistor change between boards might help with flashing randomness ( if its not an actual random generator already. " It could be Rabbit! Could be" )

There are many flashing LED's, also flickering LED's, and continuously color changing LED's.  I have all types in my LED box for various projects.