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A few weeks ago a friend of mine ask me if I could mount some kind of illumination inside the meter of his Di PRO .It had to be simple , lightly enough to enable visibility of the Meter needle in the night , with low power consumption and with minimum interruption of detector functionality and exterior . As this came suddenly I haven't much time to solve this demand .
First of all I had to disassembly the Meter ( after I put battery out ) from housing unscrewing two smaller Phillips screws positioning left and right from central bigger screw in the middle at back side of housing , opposite the analog meter.When the meter is released it can be further dismantle by taking off front transparent panel from the corpse of instrument . Now moving needle is in range and be carefully to not broke it . Before that you can disconnect meter by twist off two nuts on the back of instrument . Watch out which wire is positive and which is negative to avoid later ruin of instrument .Meter housing himself is fixed for a handle with one big Phillips screw in center . After unscrewing it housing had to simply lift up and it will go away from carrier . When housing is dismantled , handle became all visible and you can see hole in the top of handle throw which are lid several wires . This is the same point where we attempt to bring power supply for our light from main board.
I look at electronic garbage lies in the corner of my garage and choose to use Ultra-bright LED's from discharged cigarette lighter as a source of light , main switch from broken PC power supply and some insulated wires to connect all parts together .Because of very sharp angle of radiating this kind of LED's with extraordinary shine , I used two of them with putting Al self adhesive strip around edges of front glass of the meter as some kind of reflector . This two LED's ( you may put four or more if you wish , but be aware of battery consumption ) were mounted at front glass ( transparent plastic ) panel in the lower , stripped part , parallel connected to each other with insulated thin wire and fixed with glue gun ( hot melted plastic ). Don't use Super glue or some kind of adhesives because of dissolving transparent plastic . Be sure in that you choose thin isolated wire ( I use 0.25mm from LAN cable ) to make possible later adjusting needle position of moving coil because two wires have to pass between adjustment knob and lower edge of front panel . As detectors take part of in-hand-shaking devices I suggest to isolate all naked welded parts with thermo-shrinkable tube to prevent short circuits .You have to put also a serial resistor 1/8 W 470 - 1000 ohm in + line from switch to limit current through LED's and lower their bright .The lower resistant - biggest bright and opposite. I myself put 1Kohm to achieve optimal bright as you can see at the picture .
In this operation I used simply on-off switch as I describe and put him on the left side of meter housing by the down side in order to get easy switching with right thumb while holding detector with right hand .In this way whole device keep its one-hand operating and stay with minimum exterior interruption.After using forefinger for Trigger and now thumb for switching light , handle grip became in some kind of Quickshot joystick ! Surely you can use any kind of switch you have and even put it on the right side of housing in order to use by left-handed person . To make hole in meter housing you need to drill a square hole ( 12x18 mm if you use same type of switch ) in thick black plastic .After drilling , connect positive wire , in and out from switch with welding ( at picture it is white wire ). In this point i had to connect serial resistor 1Kohm and put thermo-shrinkable tube overall .
Now only left to bring power to switch .Two wires (white-positive and brown negative at picture ) had to be drag through handle grip , as other wires do , to main board and welded brown wire (negative) directly to negative contact of battery . White wire ( positive ) is welded at Power Control switcher ALPS 4P4T pins 3,4,5 which are shortcuted at PCB and it delivers positive current from battery when detector turns on in any of those three positions . This way of connecting supply provides that when detector turns off light turns off too ,no matter it was turned off or on by added switch . After testing modification all left to do is to assembly detector in previous state mounting parts in reverse order as they were disassembly .
This was my " last minute " solution which takes one afternoon to complete . I made some pictures and I'll try to attach them to look close to my modification which is applicable to all older White's detectors with analogue meter . For some people maybe it looks like Fancy stuff , but other who must tear by night I hope it will be usefully .
First of all I had to disassembly the Meter ( after I put battery out ) from housing unscrewing two smaller Phillips screws positioning left and right from central bigger screw in the middle at back side of housing , opposite the analog meter.When the meter is released it can be further dismantle by taking off front transparent panel from the corpse of instrument . Now moving needle is in range and be carefully to not broke it . Before that you can disconnect meter by twist off two nuts on the back of instrument . Watch out which wire is positive and which is negative to avoid later ruin of instrument .Meter housing himself is fixed for a handle with one big Phillips screw in center . After unscrewing it housing had to simply lift up and it will go away from carrier . When housing is dismantled , handle became all visible and you can see hole in the top of handle throw which are lid several wires . This is the same point where we attempt to bring power supply for our light from main board.
I look at electronic garbage lies in the corner of my garage and choose to use Ultra-bright LED's from discharged cigarette lighter as a source of light , main switch from broken PC power supply and some insulated wires to connect all parts together .Because of very sharp angle of radiating this kind of LED's with extraordinary shine , I used two of them with putting Al self adhesive strip around edges of front glass of the meter as some kind of reflector . This two LED's ( you may put four or more if you wish , but be aware of battery consumption ) were mounted at front glass ( transparent plastic ) panel in the lower , stripped part , parallel connected to each other with insulated thin wire and fixed with glue gun ( hot melted plastic ). Don't use Super glue or some kind of adhesives because of dissolving transparent plastic . Be sure in that you choose thin isolated wire ( I use 0.25mm from LAN cable ) to make possible later adjusting needle position of moving coil because two wires have to pass between adjustment knob and lower edge of front panel . As detectors take part of in-hand-shaking devices I suggest to isolate all naked welded parts with thermo-shrinkable tube to prevent short circuits .You have to put also a serial resistor 1/8 W 470 - 1000 ohm in + line from switch to limit current through LED's and lower their bright .The lower resistant - biggest bright and opposite. I myself put 1Kohm to achieve optimal bright as you can see at the picture .
In this operation I used simply on-off switch as I describe and put him on the left side of meter housing by the down side in order to get easy switching with right thumb while holding detector with right hand .In this way whole device keep its one-hand operating and stay with minimum exterior interruption.After using forefinger for Trigger and now thumb for switching light , handle grip became in some kind of Quickshot joystick ! Surely you can use any kind of switch you have and even put it on the right side of housing in order to use by left-handed person . To make hole in meter housing you need to drill a square hole ( 12x18 mm if you use same type of switch ) in thick black plastic .After drilling , connect positive wire , in and out from switch with welding ( at picture it is white wire ). In this point i had to connect serial resistor 1Kohm and put thermo-shrinkable tube overall .
Now only left to bring power to switch .Two wires (white-positive and brown negative at picture ) had to be drag through handle grip , as other wires do , to main board and welded brown wire (negative) directly to negative contact of battery . White wire ( positive ) is welded at Power Control switcher ALPS 4P4T pins 3,4,5 which are shortcuted at PCB and it delivers positive current from battery when detector turns on in any of those three positions . This way of connecting supply provides that when detector turns off light turns off too ,no matter it was turned off or on by added switch . After testing modification all left to do is to assembly detector in previous state mounting parts in reverse order as they were disassembly .
This was my " last minute " solution which takes one afternoon to complete . I made some pictures and I'll try to attach them to look close to my modification which is applicable to all older White's detectors with analogue meter . For some people maybe it looks like Fancy stuff , but other who must tear by night I hope it will be usefully .
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