Golden Jubilee
Posts: 590
Joined: Mon Apr 06, 2015 11:00 pm
Location: SLC, UTAH
Re: L110 dash lights and sockets
cornbinder89 wrote:One for all is fine, If I were going to "convert" a 6 volt vehicle, I would sit down a figure out the stuff that is hard to change to 12 volt (wiper motor, gauges etc) and figure the max current and get a solid state convertor that could handle the current, and have one "6 volt buss" to supply these items.
I thought about doing this, but the wiper and heater together, plus margin, would come in at around 10 amps. The wiper motor draws quite a lot of current when starting up.
Terrell wrote:You can buy the L7805 voltage regulator very cheap on epay, doesn't look to be rocket science to wire them ( two wire per regulator)...I just didn't think the gauges would have that much of a current draw.....
7805 will probably work. A better choice is the LM317 or LM338. These can be set to any voltage at least 1.25V lower than the supply. I would aim for about 7 volts output, same as a 6V generator charging the battery. Good heat sinking will allow all the gauges to run from a single regulator. I think I calculated about 1.5A current as a worst case scenario.
Good timing on this post. I could have bought a regulator, but I decided to build my own entirely from parts in my junk boxes. This is what I came up with:
I tried it out today for the first time. Works perfectly. The regulator resistors I used (2.2K and 10K ohm) were a bit out of tolerance and I ended up with 7.3 volts instead of 7. Close enough that I'm not going to worry about it.