I saved this panel out of the dump several years ago. It was full of timers and relays to control off-peak electric heat better known around here as "Rate 11".
I wanted to have the ability to switch individual loads near the source so I took advantage of the switches mounted on the front of the box. You can see the fusebox from an unnamed US auto maker that I chopped out of a f-150.
I have added a power outlet below the panel for charging some of my 12 volt items and my NiMH batteries. Compressor/light, 1 gal. shop vac/blower, and boosterpack. It won't be long before I add another.
I also added led's and a volt meter on the front cover. (Photo soon) I used tri color led's so that green indicates standby and red indicates power on. Nice to tell at a glance if something is drawing power from the batteries.
I want to run fluorescent lighting in the shop and I have a bunch of old circle-lights that were given to me, I found some nifty 12 volt ballasts on e-bay and took a chance. I bought 5 of them and had my doubts when they arrived. They had 2 red, 2 yellow 1 black and 1 white wire on them. I thought that black and white were always 110 vac.
Taking one apart there weren't even any markings on the circuit board to identify anything, No markings at all. I took a guess and connected the 6 wires where I thought they should go and flipped switch #4 on my 12 volt panel and guess what.
Black is negative and white is positive. The little bugger is pretty bright with a new lamp. Left it running for over an hour and it hardly got warm. Acording to the seller they are 20 watt max but it seems to handle the 32 watt circle lamp just fine. Might just have to get a dozen before they are all gone. Now on to a more important projects like pouring a tower base.
