My used Shark Aquarium car, bought on an auction site, works perfect in every respect, save one - the backlight doesn't work. The backlight is an electroluminescent panel, that glows a soft blue color. That style of lighting used to be popular for home night lights many years ago. The original defective panel glowed blue just a bit around the connection areas and finally it glowed no more. They do that, I've been told, or at least I read. So I looked for over a year and a half for a new or used one - no luck, I finally found a new panel and bought two at a very reasonable price. Why two? Because at that price and that scarcity, I wanted to make sure I had one that would work!
So I installed one of the new ones. Actual soldering was not hard at all, I used a fine tip on the soldering pencil and kept the temp down because the electrical connections to these panels are 4 staked pins (see below) that have 4 little pierced and crimped teeth that actually make the connections, and I was not wanting to melt the connections.
Why 4 pins? Because the panel exists on 3 sides, left side, folded over the top (a non-illuminated area), and the right side. Electroluminescent panels are supposed to run on about 90VAC. They also DO NOT like to be folded, or so I've read. That's why the roof area is non-luminescent, so they don't destroy the whole panel when they created the folds there.
I'll cut to the chase - I tried both of the new panels, neither worked. I measured 93.5VAC across the two left side pins and exactly the same across the two right side pins. I ever so carefully created a drawing of where each wire went before starting the replacement, which documented both the plug end and at the roof-top connections on this short little cable. I did not fold the plastic at any time, on either one.
So my question is this - the panels were clearly new, laying flat, with lengthwise creases to accommodate the roof. Is, or was it common for new panels to fail? Keep in mind, these panels have been sitting on a Lionel shelf for many years. The electronics inside this car contain a version of Odyssey, so that should help date this thing.
Can you "shed some light" on the subject??
George
Pretty much looks like any other Aquarium car except for that - and the black paint - and the sharks. What's really nuts about it is the amount of electronics they stuffed into it just to be an aquarium car with sound and variable shark speed
