Accessory Amperage + Battery vs Reducer = ??????????

[carolinasled]

I'm not trying to beat a dead horse. I want to do this one time and be done with it for a while.

On my cart for 2016, I'm in the middle of adding some accessories. I like the reducer route but I want to get whats right. If I went the reducer route I would put between the batteries and reducer a 30amp resettable circuit breaker.

What I got + thinking of purchasing:

Pioneer Stereo w/ 4 Rockford Fosgate Speakers - 10 amp fuse on the back of radio

Led Head/Tail Lights - 15 amp (what came in it)

12" Light bar on bumper - ?? amperage ( I need to check amperage draw)

36" Light bar on the top - ?? amperage (thinking)

small amp for single sub - ?? amperage (thinking)

Led accessories - ?? amperage.
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The way i'm thinking is, if by chance I run all at once will 30 amp be sufficient enough.

The radio is good up to 10 amps and that would be wide open which is pretty impossible in the campground.

My Led head/taillights have a 15 amp fuse in them. Is this normal? I dont see them pulling 15 amps. (I need to test the amperage to see what they are pulling & What would cause them to pull any more at any given time other than hitting the brake light).

Just those 2 could be ran at probably 10 amps together maybe.

Leds - RGB maybe 4 amps total, under carriage/any other spots. Total

The main Amp Hawgs would be the 32" & 12" light bars. ( I would need to check them also).

The amp for the sub is just a thought at this point. I'm hoping the set up I have will do for what I have and will soon see.

Any input from the ones who took the time to read this.

[carolinasled]

Ok so I just got back from the garage. Grabbed my meter just to see that I had a dead battery that I accidentally left on. So I grabbed one of my El Cheapo Harbor Freight Freebies out of the bin

The 12" LED light bar read 3.48 amps with a bench top power supply @ 13.8 volts.


And the Headlight/Taillight with The Brake Light Pressed read 2.15 amps off 2 6v batteries.


I will check the Radio this weekend. Should I figure in any percentage over these reading for good measure?

[carolinasled]

Ok, On the 12" Led light. I tested it at 13.8 volts (bench top tester) and read 3.5 amps. So if this is the case 13.8v x 3.5a = 48.3 +/- watts. The online listing said it was a 72w 12" light.

With this being said thats just over half of its claim.

So if a 234 Watt 36" Led light produces 130 Watts on a 12v (golf cart) that would essentially be 9.75 amps.

I'm just trying to do this on paper to see my total combined amperage draw.

If this is correct for the 36" light bar. Then 9.75 + 3.5 (small bar) + 2.15 (head/tails)= 15 amps total. Plus I dont see running all three lights together but very little.

A reducer might be the way to go, I will do more testing on the radio this weekend to see its max draw with it wide open.

Does this look right or have I missed something?

[brettontsmith]

Looks reasonable to me. I am needing to do some similar testing on my set up. Currently I have the Madjax 48V - 12V 30 amp converter and I'm running regular HL/TL kit, 20" Rigid SR light bar and Wet Sounds stealth 6 sound bar.

I am planning to add a Wet Sounds 6.5" sub and HT-1 amplifier and a pair of 2 LED Rigid SR-M lights facing backwards. I'm a little concerned about my full amp load on the converter because the sound bar I already have is rated at 200W + the mono sub amp is rated at 300W RMS. Not sure how often I'll be running these at full blast but with a 12V power supply thats 42 amps. The subwoofer amp does have an independent bass control knob so I can turn it down to limit the amp draw but still.

This got me thinking about voltage converter options outside of the normal cart suppliers and I found this http://ecatalog.astrodynetdi.com/usa...rter/SD500L-12. Haven't contacted them to see how it would handle in an outdoor environment, but it could be an interesting solution for not much more than a traditional converter.

[Volt_Ampere]

Just add up all of the amps and multiply by a safety factor (I would use 1.5 at least). I don't ever run things near their ratings - especially if they say "Made in China"! :-)