When you are at the water end of the SF Cable Car, especially in the winter
months, walk across the street to the Buena Vista and order an Irish Coffee.
They are world famous for that! They are wonderful.
Now on to the Bugeye 2 speed wiper. The Bugeye came equipped with a 3 speed
wiper. Made by Lucas, it was 1. off, 2. sometimes slow with smoke, and 3.
on.
But seriously folks, why not do one of these tricks. When I wanted to have
a multi speed wiper on our old VW beetles, I would just buy a headlight
switch from any old American car. Built in to the switch is a wire wound
rheostat made for dimming the dome light and the dash lights. Just wire
that into the hot lead of the wiper motor and bingo, you can vary the speed
as you like. In the case that the BE wiper motor draws too much current for
the dimmer pot, They used to make heavy duty ones to control the heater
speed. Check them out.
Another easy fix is to ask a friend who knows a little math to use the Ohm's
Law to calculate the power required for a resister to cut the speed in half,
or down to what ever speed you desire. Then get a resister of the desired
ohms, perhaps 150 ohms or 500 ohms, that should cut the speed in half. It
will be important to get one with enough wattage, perhaps 10 watts power to
not get too hot when running. Then wire a double pole, double throw toggle
switch to switch the resister into and out of the power wire to the wiper.
Bingo, $3 or 4 dollars of parts and it is done. If you don't want to drill
a hole in the dash, put it on a little angle bracket just under the dash out
of sight.
As a shade tree way to determine the proper resistance to buy, using test
clips, put a 110 volt 100 watt light bulb in series with the hot lead and
check the speed. Use a higher wattage like 300 watt bulb for it to go
faster and like a 25 watt bulb to go slower etc. When you select the right
speed for you, take an ohm meter and measure the resistance of the bulb that
works best and buy a 10 or 25 watt resister of the same ohms.
Actually, now that I think about it, you can just wire both ends of the
resister to the hot lead, then cut the hot lead in-between either end of the
resister, then put a single pole single throw switch there and it will by
pass the resister for full speed and when turned off, the current will then
flow through the resister. Bingo!
Some one should market that and sell them! I get 10%! lol
Cheers,
Bob in San Diego
Robert D. Gardner
Gardner Productions LLC
Film and Video Production since 1978
619-460-1000
www.gardnerproductions.com
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