Re: (ET) lights 12V lights and 12V lift

["David Roden (Akron OH USA)" <etpost drmm net>]

On 25 May 2014 at 18:26, Geof Thompson wrote:

> Lights---- Add a tail light then connect the two head lights and the
> tail light in series ...

Good idea.  Just make sure that all 3 lamps are identical.  If you try to 
use a lower wattage lamp for the tail light, it will get more than its 
share 
of voltage, and burn out.


> Lift. ---- Add a second 12V deep cycle battery. Build a box like a
> weight box,  on the front with a tiller on the back with a mower,
> blower or plough etc. or take out the charger and stash it there 

This could work.  But I don't know that I'd want to have to make an extra 
box for it, especially if I had to move that box and battery around, 
depending on what accessory I had attached.

You could certainly swap out the big GE charger for a smaller switchmode 
charger, and maybe put a little AGM battery in the freed-up space.  But 
don't forget that you then need a 12v charger to keep THAT battery charged.

Perhaps you could use a small DC:DC converter instead of a charger.  I'm 
not 
an EE, so someone please correct me if this is wrong, but I think that 
with 
a low-impedance AGM battery in parallel, you wouldn't have to size the 
DC:DC 
to handle the lift's peak current.  Thus the DC:DC could be smaller and 
cheaper.

The downside is that 12v on the lift will make it struggle with some 
loads.  

I wonder if a simple voltage regulator circuit could be used to reduce 
lift 
motor voltage from 36v to 18-24v.  It would waste some energy as heat and 
require a pretty substantial regulator and heatsink, but it'd be cheaper 
and 
simpler than a DC:DC converter.

Has anyone ever measured the peak current the lift motor draws?