1957 Do-All bandsaw: Looking for info on an odd midget lamp plug

Well I finally took my first cut with my Dad's 1957 Doall 16-SFP band saw. I hate to look back at how many years it was used as a storage table. Thanks to everyone for the input last year on getting it cleaned up and reassembled.

I still have one nagging issue - the Do-all work light. My Do-All saw has two midget outlets above top blade guide for the lamp. These sockets are wired to a step down transformer on the side of the band saw. This is so the standard 120VAC 1 phase light bulb can be powered from the incoming 240V 3 phase power. The problem is the Do-All work light has a replacement NEMA 1-15 plug and cord, which is too big to fit into the midget socket. See photos below of the midget socket and a standard two prong NEMA plug.

The socket is labeled 250V 10A AH&H. The plug has two straight blades that are polarized. AH&H (Arrow, Hart & Hegeman, Inc.) later became part of Cooper Industries. I can find alternative Cooper midget locking plugs & receptacles with curved blades, such as the 125V 10A model 7596 outlet. The problem is these locking versions are much bigger than the ones in the saw, so they do not fit well into the saw sheet metal.

Any idea where I can look for information or actual plugs to fit the existing outlets?

Thanks

I believe its a 32 V light ...probably made obsolete by LEDs ......Get a cheap 12v battery charger ,and hook up some LEDs to it...masses of LEDs hardly take 1 amp.

If you remove the outlets and the trim ring, would a standard outlet fit, or how close is it ?

john.k said:

I believe its a 32 V light ...probably made obsolete by LEDs ......Get a cheap 12v battery charger ,and hook up some LEDs to it...masses of LEDs hardly take 1 amp.

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Not 32v, 110v I have the same receptacle on mine, I have the correct plug on my light. No idea where you will find one. Make a project of it, make one. They made millions of them surely you can make one or two.

Says 10A-250v, perhaps an obsolete NEMA socket

With some effort I was able to pull the existing midget plugs and do some measurements. After too much research I took the easiest approach and ordered some plastic housing Bryant 7468N two pole twist-lock midget receptacles. Why Bryant? Per their catalog it has the smallest body - I only need to file the thru holes in the Doall 0.02" bigger in diameter. But these ML-1R type receptacles have a standard flange diameter of 1.63". I will need to grind flats to fit two receptacles in place (1.5" pitch) and clear the screw heads holding the J-box on the other side. New mounting screw holes will also need to be tapped. Two Bryant receptacles and a Hubbell mating plug (HBL7465V) were about $33 delivered off of Ebay.

The Do-All factory step-down transformer for the lamp is also bad. But since I am going with an LED lamp I can use a smaller a 6VA step-down transformer + fuse holders from Digikey and have plenty of space to spare in the box.

Thanks for the comments.

i had something about that size but it was a two lug twist lock with one lug bigger then the other

1yesca said:

i had something about that size but it was a two lug twist lock with one lug bigger then the other

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That probably is the same as the Hubbell HBL7465V plug I am going to use. Picture below.

The cheaper alternative would have been to go with a Recreation Vehicle style 12V LED with a standard Edison light bulb base and use 12V power supply as mentioned above. Then the plugs could have been a low voltage barrel type plug. But I like the look and ruggedness of the midget connectors better.

personally I'd just be a hack and bend/ grind the plug until it fit. I have a Australian dual voltage AA battery charger in the drawer that I twisted the diagonally prongs to be vertical so it would fit in a US socket. Works just fine. Or make a dummy plug that is permanently wired into the socket so it looks original. Even some household solid copper wire hammered flat and wired into a "wire it yourself" plug housing would probably work.

crrmeyer said:

That probably is the same as the Hubbell HBL7465V plug I am going to use. Picture below.

The cheaper alternative would have been to go with a Recreation Vehicle style 12V LED with a standard Edison light bulb base and use 12V power supply as mentioned above. Then the plugs could have been a low voltage barrel type plug. But I like the look and ruggedness of the midget connectors better.

View attachment 317077

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that's it .

mattthemuppet said:

personally I'd just be a hack and bend/ grind the plug until it fit. I have a Australian dual voltage AA battery charger in the drawer that I twisted the diagonally prongs to be vertical so it would fit in a US socket. Works just fine. Or make a dummy plug that is permanently wired into the socket so it looks original. Even some household solid copper wire hammered flat and wired into a "wire it yourself" plug housing would probably work.

Click to expand...

It turns out that the Hubbell HBL7465V miniature locking plug has the same blade pitch as the original Do-All straight blade light plug. Probably not surprising since Arrow Hart made both series of plugs. So you could probably get the new plug to fit the original socket with some hammering to flatten and subsequent shaping.

I just bought a cheap retrofit plug at the borg and "narrowed" it to fit the do-all socket.
I wonder if do-all would have any parts, my buddy with the do-all found them easy to work with.

For future reference if anyone decides to upgrade the obsolete miniature receptacle:

I ended up removing the original sockets and replacing them with two Bryant 7468N 15A Midget Locking Flanged Receptacles. Some minor flange trimming as shown in the photo was required. While I would have preferred the silver and black color or other brands of midget receptacles, the minimal amount of filing to open the holes up slightly won me over. The other would have required much bigger holes.


One comment - you can’t use screws and nuts to attach the flanged receptacles. The required assembly order of the internal J-box prevents this method. So you need to tap the sheet metal for screws to hold the two flanges.



In deciding to go with low voltage LED lamps with a compatible Edison E26 base, the first choice was 12VDC recreation vehicle lamps. They are pretty reasonably priced of Amazon, but you do get what you pay for. The lights were very dim. They were more like night lights than lamp lights.


I found DoctorLED.com. They make LED lamps mostly for the boating industry. The Dr. LED 8001801 12/24VDC with 3 Cree warm light LEDs was a good fit for the lamp housing. They claim to have the same illumination density as a 60W incandescent bulb. It looks about that bright, though the spot is larger than it appears in the photo. I bought it new off of Ebay.





Since the LED bulb has internal regulation it will also run off of 12VAC. So I was able to use a small Hammond 186B12 6.3VA step-down transformer to power it. Source: Digikey with free shipping if you mail them a check.

Great minds think alike?!?

When I got my ML the factory light, or something very close, was there, but it had seen... better decades. I had several of these LED spot lamps:




The only modification from original are two 1/8” holes. The lamp shines straight on the front of the blade, so it lights up my reference line really well and leaves enough shadow line behind the blade to assist with keeping a straight cut straight. Like you, I just added a small control transformer to power the lamp:




Now that you’ve gotten your light figured it’s time for the next bandsaw project. I recommend a small-part sled:


The milled slots on mine are totally erroneous. They’re from an unrelated lesson on indexing a part to a rotary table.



Nice work getting your lamp back in order.





Jeremy

Jeremy -

That is a really nice LED lamp you have mounted to your Do-All. It must be very bright.

I do like the industrial overkill look of the original Do-All lamp. Looking at the Do-All catalogs on VintageMachinery.org | Welcome, it looks like Do-All went away from their own metal lamp assemblies and used dual Moffatt gooseneck lamps in the 1960s. Moffatt still sells them, but they are LED now.



I was fortunate that my Dad still had the original DoAll work holding jaw. Must have not been used much as it has rust only on the top and no saw marks. I do need to get two handles for it. Part of me want to use the traditional wood file handles. But the Nicholson 21474U Universal File Handles clamp so much better with their screw wedge mechanism. Not really traditional but at least it is green!





Dad also had the ratchet feed assembly as shown below. The one I have is flat on the end, unlike the one in the photo which is pointed. I'll probably need to machine a new point if I am going to use it with the work holding jaw. Unfortunately it is also missing the ratchet mechanism spring. I will have to call Do-All to see if they still have stock the leaf spring before I attempt to make one on my own.

oh man! that's too bad you used the flange mount Bryant receptacle, Leviton makes a nylon connector that you could have turned 20 thou off and it would fit in the original sheetmetal sleeve;