dc - dc converter for sensitive equipment

[Gadgets 21.63.1]

as you know, there are many items which run from the mains that we use in our caravan which has a 12 volt input. these items use there own external power supply that is rated at 12 volts. such as external hard drives, modems etc. the problem is that you still cannot use the 12 supply in your caravan on these items without destroying or making these items unreliable. connecting these items to a inverter to run the power supplies can be done without a problem, but you are using more amps to convert up to 240 volts then back down to 12 volts. the reason you cannot use these items just on the caravan battery is because, when the battery is not being charged the output voltage is around or just above 12 volts. (which is fine) BUT when the battery is being charged, the voltage will increase to over 13.5 volts sometimes to 14.4 volts and this equipment is not designed to run from this voltage so therefore is destroyed or its life if drasticly shortened, as the internal regulator is running hotter than designed to. i am now using a item from ebay which accepts 8-40 volts input and gives 12.5 volts fully regulated output.

my current draw for running, 32" led tv, modem, amplifier, 2 tb network hard drive, 8 port switch, wd media player (tv running though inverter) is down to 4-6 amps. which is fantastic. it used to be over 12 amps running all though the inverter. the other trick for saving power while still running all this is to select a tv that has panel light adjustment. so that you can adjust the power going to the panel which lights the lcd up for the tv. not many tvs do this, but the power savings can be around 6 amps when watching tv at night.

below is a picture of this item.

 

[Ken Bennetts]

Very interesting product. Are you running your whole 12v system on this unit or just selected items?
Had a bit of search on ebay but could not turn up this specific item.
Would you happen to have a link?

 

[Gadgets 21.63.1]

try this link, i use 1 in the van at the moment, which runs: 2 x wd media players, 2x 2tb network hard drives, GSM modem router, 8 port network switch, Audio/Video Switch, i also use a small fan on the device to help it keep cool. have 3 switches, so that i can choose which hdd to run or both and to switch the main power on and off.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DC-DC-Co...Electrical_Test_Equipment&hash=item41624aed78

i use another in the 200 cruiser to run another 2 tb network drive and wifi access point, this is so that the kids can access all the movies and music via wifi in the car from there ipads and iphones. better than in can dvd systems.