voltage reducer

swatguy654

I know I need a voltage reducer on a 48 volt Club car DS for my head lights or it will shorten the bulb life, but do I need an expensive on, or will a cheapo bought online work.

Thanks

BGW

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jeremie1976

I got a 48v cc also. Now this is just me but i just tapped off of 2 batteries for my lights. I know its 16v but bulbs are still working after 2 years. Once again just my 2 cents. Not telling you to do it.

Wylie_Tunes

16V will not harm a typical bulb, so tapping into 2 batts of the pack is OK, they will just be brighter then through a 12v reducer. if you do go with a voltage reducer, just get one that will carry the intended load. Im going with a small inexpensive one, as all thats getting 12V will be an ACC socket for charging a cell phone.

nobogez42

Bulb life is typically not the issue using 16 volts. It is the fact that you are only drawing from 2 of the batteries rather than the entire pack as you would with a 48v to 12v reducer. If the accessories are used very much, this will shorten the life of the 2 batteries to which you are connected.
To answer you question... Mine is a 10 amp and cost a little over $30. It is 2 years old and seems to be going strong.

Storm S

It is HIGHLY not recommended to use 2 batts out of the pack. You stand the risk of not charging those two fully or over charging the other 4. Either way your run time will be shorter as will the life of the pack. I got a 20 AMP reducer for $50.00. Not to mention you can NOT run something like a cell phone charger or a stereo off of 16v with out a melt down. Doing it right now will save you a LOT more in the future then you will spend.

crash test dummy

you can use a 10amp ($15 ebay)one for lights but they are really cheaply made and fail often

jantrree

This issue is pretty much like everything in life. You get what you pay for. A cheap one will work, but how well and for how long. How long do you intend to keep your cart? How old are your batteries and how soon will you have to replace them. How often do you use your lights. Are you going to run any accessories other than lights? Answer to these questions, should help you decide.

joesam

Since my cart had no wiring for lights at all, I got creative and made a "Xmas light" setup to consume 48 volts in series. Obviously the downside is that if any light burns out, they all go out (good ol' Xmas). But I've got LED tail lights (the lights that would typically burn out) - and halogen headlights (with spare bulbs under the seat just in case). The lights have been this way for 5 years. Of course, I've been accused of thinking outside the box - but this setup has been perfect for me. (see below)

Attached Images

Headlights.jpg (168.1 KB, 0 views)

InVision

I have the same setup (2 Halogen headlights and 2 LED tail lights). The only down side would be if I put a horn and blinkers on.... That would be a noisy Christmas tree !!

Thanks,

M

Sergio

This should come up with a "don't try this at home" warning.
It is only working in your cases due to a technicality on how your LED tail lights work. They either have a massive power resistor in parallel or they have a shunt circuit to by-pass the excessive voltage.
Stringing 4 - 12v devices in series only gives you 12v across each one if they have the same resistance(or equivalent impedance).
If you used 2 - 55w head lights and 2 - 10w regular bulb tail lights, the voltage across each 55w headlight would be 4v and the voltage across the tail lights would be 20v each.