New Idea for Budget Minded folks.

[fornesto]

I had a 12V revelation. For those who like to plug in to 110 at campgrounds, etc., why not modify a Malibu Light control box? A) They are pretty cheap and easy to come by on e-bay (~$10). B) They convert 110 to 12V so you could bypass the battery. If you wired it into all your lights and cig lighters, you could simply plug it in at the campground. It would run all your dodads. It probably even has some fusing mechanism in it.

Just a thought.

[Boodro]

Hey Fornesto , I looked into those but I saw that the wattage is pretty low. Most of them can only handle very low wattage bulbs . If ya run lights in the cabin , galley , porch plus other things like fans the wattage goes up quick. Just my thoughts. I use a battery charger as a dc supply, just plug it into ac & viola! DC! It handles all my needs & then some. Just the way I did it. Good luck .

[ogeer3]

Why not just use a power supply out of an old PC. They have a fair amount of 12V output for lights and such. You can just ignore the other outputs. There should be plenty of info on the internet on how to use them.

[rasp]

i have Malibu Lights on my deck and they work great but all the control box is a 12 VAC stepdown transformer. no DC.

[Dewayne_Mellen]

Why not just use a power supply out of an old PC. They have a fair amount of 12V output for lights and such. You can just ignore the other outputs. There should be plenty of info on the internet on how to use them.

Keep in mind that power supplies from computers are what's called switching power supplies. The voltage won't be correct until a minimum load is applied. Until that load is there I'm not sure what the supply will do.

[BILLYL]

I have converted the computer supplies into a 12v charger for my son's RC cars. Works fine. Do a Google search and you'll find all you want to know on how to convert them - and how to handle the load (couple of big watt resistore abut 10 ohm should do it)

Hope it helps

Bill

[Gerdo]

Will an automatic battery charger (connected to your battery) keep your battery charged safely while using the 12Vs? I have a charger on a big truck and "charge" the battery while I use the liftgate. I have had this setup on this truck for about 8 years with no problem. I haven't put my battery to the long test to see how long I can go without a charge (WalMart 110AH Deep Cycle) I should beable to last a week or so. (Fan and Lights)