hobbit
New Member
Hiya people,
I'm asking these question mostly on behalf of a friend who is living in very rural Wales.
Due to his location and the electricity board wanting too many thousand pound to connect him to the mains he runs his place on a 12v DC system charged by wind and solar.
He has a problem that he has several low drain pieces of equipment, radios, LED lamps etc, but they all take different voltages he runs them off disposable batteries.
He could run an inverter to run a powerpack transformer but it seems daft to the pair of us to convert 12v to AC, step it up to 240v, then back down to the needed DC and rectify, especially as he says an inverter is power hungry, and from my memories that there are losses in every step of the conversion.
I have a little electrical/electronic experience and he has asked me if there is a "box" I can build cheaply for him to give - for instance - a 6v output from his 12v batteries so he can supply these things directly, and for the odd things that won't be convenient or that need to be portable a way to supply a charging voltage to replenish rechargeable cells.
Anybody got any ideas for something simple that I can do, bearing in mind he's going to ask me for different output voltages for each power "box", I'm probably looking to make ones with outputs of 9v, 6v, 4.5v and 3v, and what components will be needed for each voltage.
Any help advice and suggestions welcome,
Thanks in advance, Hobbit.
I'm asking these question mostly on behalf of a friend who is living in very rural Wales.
Due to his location and the electricity board wanting too many thousand pound to connect him to the mains he runs his place on a 12v DC system charged by wind and solar.
He has a problem that he has several low drain pieces of equipment, radios, LED lamps etc, but they all take different voltages he runs them off disposable batteries.
He could run an inverter to run a powerpack transformer but it seems daft to the pair of us to convert 12v to AC, step it up to 240v, then back down to the needed DC and rectify, especially as he says an inverter is power hungry, and from my memories that there are losses in every step of the conversion.
I have a little electrical/electronic experience and he has asked me if there is a "box" I can build cheaply for him to give - for instance - a 6v output from his 12v batteries so he can supply these things directly, and for the odd things that won't be convenient or that need to be portable a way to supply a charging voltage to replenish rechargeable cells.
Anybody got any ideas for something simple that I can do, bearing in mind he's going to ask me for different output voltages for each power "box", I'm probably looking to make ones with outputs of 9v, 6v, 4.5v and 3v, and what components will be needed for each voltage.
Any help advice and suggestions welcome,
Thanks in advance, Hobbit.