Thanks for the reply on such an old topic. Years ago, if I had my wits about me, I could have had the opportunity to rescue a lot of these cold war relics. When the Civil Defense program was phased out, a lot of large buildings and institutions started clearing out valuable space and who knows what happened to all of that great historical equipment and literature.

The scraps that are left today are mostly on ebay… A couple of other sites snapped up a lot of the stuff early on and set up businesses refurbishing and upgrading the survey meters and Geiger counters, etc. There are a few independent sole practitioners doing this as well. Everything is way up in price — especially since the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents)

after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami flooded the reactor and caused the cooling pumps to fail.

I wish that the members of the “community” who scanned all of the other booklets, manuals, and literature, making them available as downloads online, had taken as much care to carefully scan them at the high resolution that you did. Oh well… Thank you.

Sincerely,
Cliff

Long answer is that solar panels are kinda goofy to use to power LEDs. All the PCB is doing in my lamps really is giving me a convenient way of holding the LEDs. The problem with solar panels is that the voltage will fluctuate depending on how much light they are getting. That is ok for the LEDs as long as it doesn’t go over the maximum. If it goes over the max then the light with burn out.

Most of the solar lamps that I have taken apart use the panel to charge a battery and then the battery to run the LED. That way any power fluctuations are absorbed by the battery and a constant (at least till the battery dies) voltage goes to the LEDs.

An easy way to make something would be to get a cheap yard light and rip the guts out. Then you could build it into whatever you wanted.

Cheers,
Travis

This is pretty much all I have as far as working stuff goes. The old CD stuff is surprisingly hard to find. I troll a lot of antique malls and flea markets and keep an eye out for it, but not much luck.

Glad you like the books!

Cheers,
Travis

You have posted the highest resolution copies of these manuals that I have ever seen anywhere! Thank you.

Sincererly,
Cliff

P.S.: Have you collected any more of the Civil Defense historical working relics?

If you do not mind, Do you like it? Is it comfortable? What are the pros and cons?

Thanks
Jimmy
Jimmywong11@gmail.com