Glenn Ashmore wrote:

Sorry Larry you are only half right on that one. While you are correct that
a properly installed and adjusted charging system will never see anything
higher than 15V many things go schitzo when they see more than 13.5 to 14V.
Even 12V nominal halogen bulbs will loose much of their expected life if run
at battery charging voltages. Some "smart" regulators even have a "halogen
protection" setting that limit charging voltage expressly for that purpose.

The solution for sensitive electronics is a DC/DC converter. I have
installed three on Rutu. One supplies the halogen navigation lights, one is
set to 13.2 for the radios and the third also set to 13.2V is available for
what ever else needs regulated power. Unlike normal voltage regulators that
control voltage by generating heat DC/DC converters, while not perfect, are
far more efficient.

The down side is that the cheap ones can put out harmonics that show up on
HF and SSB bands so they need to be well shielded and have ferrites on all
leads.



What brand of DC-DC converters are you using?

At the moment I need to cover:

1) Laptop, Flat Monitor, several USB hard drives.

2) DVD player and flat screen TV

And I'm wondering if the rest of the stuff should be treated likewise?
VHF, GPC, Autopilot, etc?


Someone here had a good recomendation a year or so back.
HP computer supply or some such thing that could be found on Ebay.


Richard