Use a voltage reducer or buy separate battery?

penleyface

Have a 2008 Precedent. Just installed Premium after-market light kit (with turn signal/horn, etc).

Is it better to install a voltage reducer or to install a separate 12volt battery?

And if the battery, would it handle lights and radio adequately?

BGW

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jdunmyer

A few years ago, Surplus Center had some DC->DC converters available. I bought the larger one, capable of something like 25 amps output, plenty for all sorts of lights, radios, etc. It was something over $200.00, IIRC, but I don't have to mess with a separate charger, etc. It is very efficient, drawing only 350 ma or so when there's no load on the output. Input on this one can be from 24 VDC up to 60 VDC, I think. Don't remember for certain.

I wired it up to a fairly heavy-duty switch, 10 amps rating or somesuch. The output has a pilot light on the dash, so I know when it's on. The lights are connected, along with a cigarette lighter socket. I often run a water pump with this setup, to fill my RV's onboard tank from a 25-gallon tank on the cart.

It will be moving from my old Legend to my "new" Club Car, when I get the control conversion done.

mkbrower

Last year I installed a 25 Amp reducer to run my lights and radio. Everything worked fine untill the batteries got a little low and then the radio would cut out every time I accelerated quickly from a dead stop. Eventually, everytime I accelerated any at all it would cut out. It was very frustrating. This year I replaced the reducer with an auxillary battery and I couldn't be happier with how it performed. I could run the cart all day/night with out the radio cutting out and my cart batteries seemed to last longer too. I just spent all week at the beach and had no trouble at all.

lampooner1

I installed a 25 amp converter on my 2009 Precedent. It works fine. I like it because of the convienence of no charging, just charge cart as usual.

I bought it from GPartsInc.com at a very good price.

rinman

I have an auxiliary battery and I couldn't be happier. Takes nothing away from the pack as far as run time and you can run lights/radio/and other accessories for a long time with a descent battery.

It's all a matter of preference. If your not going to have a lot of accessories then go with a reducer......if you feel you will add a lot of accessories go with and aux battery.

Mine is no big deal to charge separate, but you do have to find a place to mount it. I put mine in the bagwell.

Good luck!

jakesnake27

I installed a voltage reducer on my old cart, it was just for lights, and it worked fine. Some guys say that you should keep your pack for what it's made for, running the cart, but I never had a problem.

JasonsGolfCarts

I hope you have a coin to flip because it looks like a 50/50 split on the advice here. I suggest the voltage reducer. Both work fine but I prefer not to have to charge the 12V auxilary battery separately.

SaltLifeCC

I went with the battery. Runs lights and stereo longer than the pack will run the cart and no more lights dimming or radio cutting off when i hit the go pedal. I keep a quick connect charging cable hanging off the battery so having the extra battery charge is no big deal unless you just cant handle the extra 30 seconds it takes to connect the charger to it.

El Camino

I've got to ask this so I can get this out of my head, but why can't you run an auxiliary battery with a reducer to run lights, etc. and charge the battery??

mkbrower

An auxillary battery will not require a reducer if its 12 volts. If you are talking about adding an auxillary battery to the bank of your cart batteries there are only two ways you can add a battery and both are bad. If you add the battery in series to the rest of your batteries then your voltage would go up by 12 volts. Your 48V cart is now a 60 Volt cart. If you place the battery in parallel with another 12V battery you will still have 12 volts but you doubled that battery capacity. Esentially you created a "mega" battery.
As you run your cart, your other batteries should discharge about equal but your mega battery because it is bigger discharges at a different rate. Your mega battery will charge different because of the different discharge rates than your other batteries which is bad for all the batteries.