Does anyone have any suggestions for a dropping resistor to protect the 8v panel lamps?
I was thinking about installing a dc slow start circuit to do the same, any comments?

They never needed anything before......

I know, it's a PIA to find nd replace them. 10 ohms 1 watt.

If the lamps are operating at 8 volts then no resistor should be necessary unless you like your bulbs to be a bit dimmer and maybe not light up stuff properly.

I suppose that you could switch over to LEDs
However - they fail too

I also think that if the lamps are of decent quality then so be it. Buy a few extra and tuck them inside for several years from now. She'll need a bias check and general cleaning by then anyway. Dimming the lamps may not be as effective as hoped. A soft-start wouldn't hurt if done right. That could be a good idea. Just make the soft-start circuit easy to get to!

The soft start idea sounds like it would work, but will it really help the bulbs last longer? Depending on the type of the bulb if there is a 6 volt bulb that will fit just use them and drop down the voltage to 6 volts.

Yes, dropping the voltage can increase the lamp life a huge amount and reduce the light output by only a small amount. You could try to aim for a voltage reduction of about 10%. Either experiment by testing some resistor values, or if you can find the specs of the lamps, use Ohm's law to calculate the resistance needed to drop about one volt at the specified current of the lamps.

-David

30 years ago we didn't worry too much about dial lamps and stereo indicator lamps. They were plentiful from the manufacturer and were the CORRECT lamps (read here: not garbage that failed in 2 weeks from no-name companies).

Many times, as a tech, we would tell the customer to replace all lamps at the same time. It would only coast a few dollars more, and save them from having the same problem in a couple of months. By far the biggest expense was the labor charge, so most owners would see the logic.

Most receivers and tuners weren't all that difficult to work on, but Nakamichi had one receiver that was a nightmare; it took 3 hours to replace the lamps, mainly because you had to un-string the dial cord to pull the front panel. We insisted on replacing ALL lamps, just because we didn't want to do the job again.

LED replacement lamps are an option and I think there are some on Ebay selling them, but IMHO wouldn't look quite right. I replaced the stereo indicator bulbs in my Fisher 202 Futura Series receiver with LEDs from a LED christmas light string and while they work good I can tell they don't quite look the same as regular bulbs.

Perhaps a NTC thermistor in series with the light string would work as a slow turn-on solution?

That might work and also provide a slight voltage drop which will make the lamps last longer.

I wonder what a polyfuse would do ?

I have a Fisher 500C and put a CL-90 Thermistor in series with the power line coming into the set. This limits the surge to the entire set, I can see the lamps ramp up smoothly and no clunk from the power transformer. Good for any tube receiver.
Don

I've put off getting them (I'm busy, hey!) - it's a kick in the ass you gave me now.