ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Electrical Nostalgia Vibrator Supplies??

During the 6-volt era, automotive engineers went to great lengths to avoid imposing loads on the system. My dad has informed me that windshield wipers used to be powered by manifold vacuum, and that when you accelerated to pass, your wipers would stop!

The early Volkswagens had an even more questionable power source for the wipers: the spare tire. There was an air line running from the trunk to the wipers. Better hope you don't have a flat during a rainstorm!

So many other accessories we take for granted now did not exist then, such as power windows. Water and fuel pumps were engine-driven. Air conditioning was also non-existent, except on the most expensive cars.

Also, remember that many pre-war cars had two headlamps and one taillamp, period. No turn signals.

Then, those of us who came of age in the '80s or later (myself included) might have a hard time imagining just how unreliable cars used to be. Before the advent of solid-state rectifiers in the early '60s, the charging system consisted of a DC generator with brushes which would burn out at the worst possible time. To have an early warning of this, you needed an ammeter on the dash, which carried the entire charging current. If the ammeter failed, it opened the circuit, and the car would grind to a halt.

I've also read someplace that the current practice of running the voltage regulator at about 14V dates from the '80s, when engineers were trying to find a way to accommodate ever-growing loads without an extremely expensive upgrade to a new battery voltage. I don't know what the charging voltage was before that.

I seem to recall reading around the turn of the millenium that within five years, all cars would have 42V electrical systems, with a DC/DC converter to supply lights, radio, etc. Anybody ever see one of these? Just imagine: electric A/C compressor! No more expensive refrigerant charges from leaky seals. You could have an electrically-driven camshaft, for infinitely-variable valve timing. I can't remember all the other advances that were supposed to result.

Is the future here yet?

All-Electric cars might do that, perhaps hybrids do. I have seen 8-cell lead acid batteries installed in customs

Talking 6 Volts systems.

In the Netherlands my mum had a Renault 4 with a 6 Volts generator and accumulator. ( 70Ah)
I rememberr quite well the Ammeter on the dash was which was a VDO -50_0_+50 Amp meter. I drove the car around our farmhouse in the weekend while I was about 14 Years young.
After starting, especially in winter at -15°C. The starter motor, (demarreur) turned over so slow that it ground to a halt before every compression stroke of the engine. After say like 10 seconds very slow cranking the engine jumped into life. Ammeter off the scale for about 2 minutes and feeling warm to the touch when the load settled down to 30 Amps and tapering off to about 10 Amps in 5 minutes.

Silicon Chip had a very interesting article re the 42 systems in the cars of the future.
July 2000 issue, probably still copies available from the editor. Worth while reading.
a 36 Volts battery system is proposed with a DC - DC converter to provide 12 Volts for lamps and low power devices while electrically steppermotor driven camshafts and electrically driven turbochargers can be run from the 36 Volts supply.
12 Volts is still preferred for lamps because the filament is thicker and will generally last longer with vibrations from the vehicle in motion than a 36 Volts lamp.

The problem was also adressed with high tech cars like BMW 750iL series which use a 12 Volts 150 Amps watercooled alternator. to furnish the high loads from elecrically heated catalic converters etc.

Interesting times ahead for future cars

I _think_ one of the two German upper class manufacturers (either BMW or Mercedes) already has cars with a 42V system, but I'm not sure.

6V always reminds me of the Trabant (yes, I read the Trabant BB a lot... )... they had 6V electrics until 1983! Made for very thick starter cables and frequent failures due to bad/high resistance connections. On the other hand... that car didn't _have_ anything electric! The windscreen cleaner was operated by a hand pump... you simply pulled the handle out of the dashboard...

The later models did have some funky features... the one I drove myself when I was about 14 had a "momentary fuel consumption indicator" - a flow meter in the fuel line from the tank to the carb with a set of LEDs that light up indicating the consumption.

As a sideline to this thread,
we were talking about this topic at a recent Ham club meeting and somebody mentioned that Valve (or Tube, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on) technology is on it's way back.
Experimenters and Hobbyists, frustrated by the lack of new things in Kit building and the like are going back to basics.
Point to Point wiring is the norm and the use of newly manufactured valves are adding to the steady flow of people making thier own chassis'.
To a degree, Valve technology was a lot easier to repair as well, you didn't need a magnifying glass to identify components and the architecture of equipment was more "repairer-friendly", not the throw-away junk we have today.
All I can say is, it's about time.
So bring your 12AT7's and your 6L6's out of the cupboard!.
Some of us never stopped playing with valves.

Those new headlights which are very small with a very intense blue-ish beam are awful. I remember first seeing them on German cars in France some years ago, now they're becoming more common here as well. They might be great for seeing with, but as you say, they blind everybody else.


Vacuum-operated wipers were still being used on some British cars into the early 1960s, several years after the switch to 12-volt systems.

You bet! And that reminds me of a joke:

Famous last words #23408:

"Of course the top cap is the grid!"

I think vacuum-operated wipers are still used on buses.

I remember that the French always had traditional yellow lights in their cars up to mid, late 1980's.
Somehow that tradition has gone now. I was back in France in 1999 and most vehicles have now white lights instead of yellow.
If I could buy yellow headlight bulbs here in NZ I would fit them tomorrow.
I used them in The Netherlands in my cars I drove there and think they are great. The human eye is more sensitive to yellow anyway.
Also a lot easier in misty conditions too.
While travelling in Europe in "the old days" 9 out of 10 cars with yellow lights were French cars, as young kids on holidays we always counted them and looked at their numberplates

Yeah Ray,
These days kids need a Playstation in the back of a car to keep themselves amused.
Unreal eh?!.

Not only on their own cars, but they expected visitors to France to change their headlights to yellow as well! Along with the beam deflectors/masks for right-side driving, British car accessory shops used to sell small bottles of some kind of (cellulose?) paint for tourists to color their headlights yellow.

I think France finally had to conceded defeat and change to normal white headlights under one of the common European standards directives -- Maybe around 1992/93?