Humminbird used to sell one called the SureVolt. They ran about $75. When they quit
selling them, they remaineder the last ones for $15-20. They would produce, IIRC,
about 1.5 A of 13.8V. Not enought to run a VHF (in transmit mode), but enough
to keep my GPS and fishfinder from wigging out when I started the motor and the
battery got pulled down to around 8V. It's still going strong on my whaler.


"Larry" wrote in message ...
cavelamb himself wrote in
m:

I'm trying to find a stabalizer circuit for the house battery.
Someone (probably Larry?) a while back mentioned a device that could
take a wide range of input voltages and supply a reliable and smooth
12
VDC.

Any ideas?

Richard


Totally unnecessary. Any voltage from 10-18VDC will run any electronics
made for boats.

If you want to make it smoother, take all the connections apart, wire
brush them to a nice shine then put them all back together and spray
some battery post protector on them.

What you're talking about is a voltage regulator. The only problem is
you'd have to have a much higher voltage to start out with than a
standard battery. The regulators need "overhead" voltage, unless
there's some kind of switching power supply, which I do NOT recommend
because switchers make a lot of RF noise to tear up your VHF and SSB
radios!

The battery is a natural regulator and holds its voltage quite steady at
the posts. The voltage drops you see are caused by light wiring,
corroded breakers, corroded contacts and wires.

by the way....to find where a corroded contact is is quite easy with a
simple voltmeter. Load the circuit to full load. Put the meter ACROSS
each connection and breaker. If the connection is perfect, you read no
voltage. A corroded connector has a voltage drop you can measure UNDER
LOAD CURRENT....narrows down where it is.