It''s hot as hell in here
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Posts: 46,084
I'm sure you'll get a lot of great high tech answers, but being more
mechanically oreinteed, my 'fixes' are useally very low tech.
using a 5 volt battery may let you lose signals as soon as the
voltage drops below 5 volts. Since power is wasted as you already
know by dropping 12 V to 5 V, you can start at 6 v.
Get two 6 v batteries. Use one to power the electronics, and the
pair in series to power your 12 v needs.
In basicstamps@y..., chilton@t... wrote:
> Oh great ones,
>
> I am struggling with heat issues in one of my projects. Several
people
> have offered solutions, but the problem really boils down to this:
>
> I have a 12v LCD screen being powered by a 12v battery. I would like
> to use a smaller battery, but I'm a little unclear how all of this
> power conversion stuff works. Right now, we have 5 other circuits
> inside the housing, all deriving power from the 12v battery. But,
> those are all 6v circuits, so I run the 12v through a voltage
> regulator, which of course generates gobs of heat. This intuitively
> doesn't seem like the right course of action, as it seems any time I
> generate heat 'just for the hell of it', I'm losing power. I didn't
> sleep through all of my physics classes :-)
>
> Can I use a smaller battery than 12v to power this? I know amps are
> important, too, the power issues here just confuse the heck out of
me.
> I'm a software guy--this hardware stuff is too hard for my feeble
mind
> to understand. If I wanted to use a smaller voltage power source,
how
> can I obtain the higher voltage? And would doing that get rid of my
> heat problem?
>
> Mocking me for my lack of understanding is OK, just taint it with a
> little info and/or schematics for me to go on.
>
> Thanks,
> -Chilton Webb
mechanically oreinteed, my 'fixes' are useally very low tech.
using a 5 volt battery may let you lose signals as soon as the
voltage drops below 5 volts. Since power is wasted as you already
know by dropping 12 V to 5 V, you can start at 6 v.
Get two 6 v batteries. Use one to power the electronics, and the
pair in series to power your 12 v needs.
In basicstamps@y..., chilton@t... wrote:
> Oh great ones,
>
> I am struggling with heat issues in one of my projects. Several
people
> have offered solutions, but the problem really boils down to this:
>
> I have a 12v LCD screen being powered by a 12v battery. I would like
> to use a smaller battery, but I'm a little unclear how all of this
> power conversion stuff works. Right now, we have 5 other circuits
> inside the housing, all deriving power from the 12v battery. But,
> those are all 6v circuits, so I run the 12v through a voltage
> regulator, which of course generates gobs of heat. This intuitively
> doesn't seem like the right course of action, as it seems any time I
> generate heat 'just for the hell of it', I'm losing power. I didn't
> sleep through all of my physics classes :-)
>
> Can I use a smaller battery than 12v to power this? I know amps are
> important, too, the power issues here just confuse the heck out of
me.
> I'm a software guy--this hardware stuff is too hard for my feeble
mind
> to understand. If I wanted to use a smaller voltage power source,
how
> can I obtain the higher voltage? And would doing that get rid of my
> heat problem?
>
> Mocking me for my lack of understanding is OK, just taint it with a
> little info and/or schematics for me to go on.
>
> Thanks,
> -Chilton Webb