My Kirby 519

[captchar]

So this 519 is one of the oldest working kirby's ive ever owned and or had, it still needs a new fan on the todo list but It is from what I can tell complete, this is also the first time ive seen the Kirby air freshener in its oil can like can

 

[captchar]

so an oddity happened, I installed a 120v LED on this machine, however after short use the LED just went off, but it will breifly flash when I shut the machine off, im guessing I have a bad bulb cause the 509 has the same LED in it without issue, the stock tungsten lamp still works fine however, I was trying to go with LED to not warp the trim on the headlight area

 

[kirbyklekter]

Bulbs

I was told that on some model Kirby's the light bulbs drew power off the mains,125v and others drew from the motor itself at 12v. I don't know if or when this occurred but I trust the source. Maybe someone like Ben could elaborate on this and if so, then you could decide if another voltage rated bulb would be in order.Les is up on bulbs for Kirby's also. Hope this helps.

 

[captchar]

I know my Heritage 2 is a 12v system, I dunno if its 12v AC or 12v DC though, the 500 series from what ive read are 120v ac, I got some more LED's on the way, non-dimmable ones this time, since I have a hunch that might be the culprit but I wanted to double check cause I know some have converted their older units to LED

 

[dysonman1]

Very nice 519. I was recently given one and completely rebuilt it. Yours looks complete. And in good shape. A new fan can be installed in less than 10 minutes.

 

[captchar]

New non dimmable LED installed, warm white to mimic the original bulb, and plastic fan I know heresy but hey it works, the machine for only having two rows of brushes on the brushroll being this era, picks up surprisingly well, when i got this machine I did have to bypass the safety switch, as it does nothing, when pressed the machine wont power up

 

[lesinutah]

Press

Down the safety switch on the front. The motor won't turn on without the switch engaged.

 

[captchar]

that's what I mean even with the nozzle on it wouldn't turn on, bypassed it and it worked, I know I can get a replacement for it

 

[kirbyclassiciii]

CaptChar

It's 134356 for models 516 to Sanitronic VII.

Other symptoms of your machine not turning on would be worn-out carbon brushes (order 118067).

~Ben

 

[captchar]

I mean it works fine as long as the switch is bypassed, the switch reads open no matter what, the brushes on this machine are fine, the commutator on the armature however looks like the the one in the attached image, so I don't know how much life this 519 has left on it, this is just a reference as I didn't want to go tear down the while kirby for a single shot