DC/DC

The guys at the firehouse noted that my headlights were yellow. This is a result of running them off a 12v battery. Even though the laptop brick kept the battery up it was still only giving 12.5 volts or less to the lights. The solution is a DC/DC converter. This is a 12v battery charger.

Iota makes a battery charger for motor homes and the like which serendipitously will run on DC as well as the normal AC. Because these units were so expensive, I was just using a large marine battery. Anyway, I started looking on Ebay and ended up with a 55Amp unit for $125 including postage. I mated it with one of the little sealed UPS batteries I had left over from my original traction pack. The space was less than the marine battery and the weight was much less.

I installed it in the same place the marine battery used to be. The battery is on its side on top of the Iota charger. The little battery is held at 13.6v and the lights stay bright. 55amps should handle any conceivable 12v load.