MES bulb repair

Perfect! Yes, Dennis said something similar, regarding a pivot. I have a stock of M2.5 washers, which fit Hornby axles (!), so may do the job. Never having used LED bulbs, I hadn't appreciated that the 'glass' is actually plastic.

There will be insufficient heat from an LED to run his "fan/turbine"

He doesn't want to drive the fan with heat, he has his pump for that.

Indeed. I did wonder whether the original bulb blew because I was pumping a jet of cold air up the side of a hot bulb. Probably not, but at least a cold LED bulb will not worry about a jet of cold air.

This reminds me of my old elctric fire that has vanes balanced on gramophone needles over red 'Fireglow' 60W bulbs under a coal-effect top. When the vanes rotate it gives the effect of flames in the coals.

The trouble is, the vanes have glass cetres with a conical well that balances on the points. This works fine initially, but eventually the glass loses its shine owing to being worn by the needles, and the vanes will not keep going even if I sharpen the needles.

Your dimpled bulb was probably worn down by the point on the rotating vane, which is why it wouldn't work very well.

Your new LED arrangement will probably need a dimple made of glass rather than rough plastic.

Graeme expressed precisely :

Assuming the 'heat version' relied upon waste heat from the lamp, a resistor could provide much more heat than a bulb.

And fry the LED at the same time.

Having had a look at the eBay item, it?s hard (at least for me) to understand how the bit with the green & red lenses and the bulb and the spinny vane thing would work together??

In message snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com, snipped-for-privacy@o2.co.uk writes

The bulb sits at the top of a tower, pointing upwards. There is a dimple in the top of the bulb. The red/green spinny thing (with the vane in the top) has a spike inside, pointing down, the spike sitting in the dimple in the bulb. The theory is the heat from the bulb rises up, and exits via the vanes, causing the whole red/green part to rotate.

Yesterday, I ordered an LED bulb, as linked by Andy, and it arrived this morning. The top is already slightly concave, and there looks to be enough material there to allow a twist or two with a drill to create slightly more of a dimple. Unfortunately, the bulb does not easily screw into the holder, although both are MES. That can be overcome, though.