From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Headlight wiring, fuse failures and proposed solutions for the Phantom III and other models.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 61a\3\ scan0165 | |
| Date | 20th December 1935 | |
| xG/6 To Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. Wer.-C.HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Ey. JLL. MX.{John H Maddocks - Chief Proving Officer} BY/RD. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/wst. E.6/HP.20.12.35. re Wiring of Headlights. Referring to memos Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}2/E.17.12.35 and C.S/G.19.12.35, first of all we can say we foresaw this danger and legislated for it on Phantom III. The fuse board on Phantom III is one employing tubular fuses, and is equipped with two separate head lamp fuses, and this fuse board is specified for Wraith 2, and would also be used on Bentley 2. Now that actual trouble has been experienced on account of this feature, it will certainly be necessary to accelerate the adoption of two fuses on existing and immediate future production, and possibly take some retrospective action. Further evidence of the trouble indicates that the failure is in the headlamp itself and not in the wiring. We learn that when the fuse is replaced after a black-out without doing anything further than this the system appears to be normal again. The black-out, therefore, appears to arise from some temporary shorting in the headlamp, possibly set up by vibration. We should, therefore, like to have lamps which have given trouble, and we will put these lamps on a bumper chassis and endeavour to reproduce the failure. We have three schemes under consideration for introducing the separate fusing:- (1) Arranging with Lucas to add a separate fuse, one in each lamp. (2) Re-arranging the fuses on the standard board so that an existing fuse is made available for one of the headlamps. (3) Adding a small extra fuse box for dealing with the | ||