I'm glad you've posted these Dom.

I remember when I first got a copy of these, I was so happy!

If I'm honest, I found them slightly more useful than the original Trench plans that everybody is familiar with.

Fascinating plans. I never knew there was a blue light bulb inside the box that flashed in time with the lamp on top. Has anyone ever done this with their box?

I plan to on mine, the one at Chrich is one of those smally "Pigmy" bulbs.

I shall also put  one in my 1/4 scale build so it will be interesting to see how it looks when flashing although getting scale bulbs will be interesting...

A LED perhaps?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

I was thinking LED but that would involve some crazy circuitry to achieve the fading effect that you get with normal tungstan lamp.

Obviously the size is important but as for scale I actually meant (and failed to transcribe from my thoughts!) the scale of the wattage. The internal bulb that lights a real police box was 100 watt so I figured for a quarter scale model I would need a 25 watt bulb inside.

Is my thinking right or have I just made that up?

A 25 watt bulb inside a quarter-scale model would be blinding; 16 times too bright.  It would be like having a 1600 watt bulb inside a full-size box.

You want to think of the volume you're illuminating.  A quarter-scale model has 1/64th the volume of the original, so you'd only need a 1.5 watt incandescent bulb to achieve scale illumination.

Cheers, I was never very god at fractions and the like.

Would that fraction work of 1/64 work for all the lighting reductions?

Yes, for a quarter-scale box, assuming the same type of light (incandescent for incandescent).

Thanks, appreciate the help.

Quote from: meantimebob on Jan 18, 2012, 12:02 am
I never knew there was a blue light bulb inside the box that flashed in time with the lamp on top.

The Glasgow Box in Avoncroft has this feature set up and working on their Box.


Video Here

I have seen the blue bulb in other pics and things around the interwebs for some time.   I have always thought it would look fantastic to have the windows, signs and door sign pulse blue when the top beacon starts during dematerialization/materialization.   Definitely plan on making it a part of my build someday.   I have a small blue LED that I used to shine through the Character Options TARDIS and the effect looked really cool.

The one in the Crich box was a small (25 watt if I remember right) blue Pygmy Bulb.

While I was there the first time measuring it the roof lamp flashed when the box was called although the internal one never did.

Unless the the traffic was really busy, you really wouldn't need the internal lamp as the electro-mechanical gizmo that made the bulbs flash from the incoming phone signal made quite a noise!

Love this thread! When on a visit to Glasgow (1972)! My younger brother and I tried the handle of one of these red police-boxes-only for a young uniformed P.C. to emerge with a steaming mug of tea in his hand-he looked rather irate, and in no uncertain terms, told us to be on our way!! I remember it being in the Bridgetown area-not sure if it exists anymore!