Wez Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 Hey All, Can anyone recommend a decent bench 12v supply that would be suitable for powering up car electrics, I am not looking at running the car although that would be a bonus if possible. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted August 13, 2010 Author Share Posted August 13, 2010 Something like this maybe? http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=30391 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted August 13, 2010 Author Share Posted August 13, 2010 (edited) This one doesnt look too bad either http://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/amateur-radio/amateur-radio-power-supplies/alinco-dm-330mw http://www.nevadaradio.co.uk/amateur-radio/amateur-radio-power-supplies/palstar-sps-9600 Edited August 13, 2010 by Wez (see edit history) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted August 13, 2010 Author Share Posted August 13, 2010 Reading up on this it would cost a fortune to have a bench supply capable of running a car, I am not sure how it would work with the alternator anyway, but for testing electrical systems with the ignition on maybe something in the 30-60A range would be suitable. What are peoples thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tDR Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 Spare battery on a trickle charger and jump leads to connect to the car terminals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul mac Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 a bench supply delivering the kind of uumph you are after for cranking would be expensive, for powering electrical systems i would say the ones you have looked at would be suitable as long as you dont have a couple of huge cooling fans on the rad would it not be more cost effective to use a battery and charge it when not in use, you could get several hours from a decent battery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 Spare battery on a trickle charger and jump leads to connect to the car terminals? Yup... that's the way I'd go....Nice fat fuse on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted August 13, 2010 Author Share Posted August 13, 2010 I guess my old halfords battery will do the trick then Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 Halfrauds do a nice decent 100Amp maxi fuse which would do the job.. http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_379563_langId_-1_categoryId_165562 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terminator Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 Spare battery with a good quality foat charger. Hawker and Powersafe make batteries that will do the job, with a 15 year life, just dont let them deep cycle. Three year max uncharged. Non spill etc. I run a 40ah in my car, no probelm with multiple cold starts associated with difficult start map issues. I just leave it on automatic float, even have a switched din socket in the boot for convience. ie no carpet lifting, with the bonus of a switched live socket in the boot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suprab1 Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 I know it's a dumb question but when/what would you use this for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Wilson Posted August 13, 2010 Share Posted August 13, 2010 I picked my rebuilt Mugen engine today from EDL and they had an issue with it on the engine dyno.. It would run on my Zytek ecu, but only using their CD ignition box and their dyno loom. They couldn't use my CD box on their loom as my box has MIL connectors and their loom has Lucar connectors. So I basically paid a huge amount of money for an engine I *KNOW* won't run in the car I knew it had to be the Lucas CD box or the chassis loom, so I took the CD box to a guy that was the development engineer for it at Lucas, way back when. This is where your running the car electrics comes in Wez. This bloke ran a repair business for these boxes, which are commonplace in historic F1 and Le Mans cars, in what I presume used to be his kitchen He had all sorts of elderly power supplies, signal generators and load cells. The box also contains the rectifier and regulator for the alternator. He had an old variable voltage and current power supply that gave up to 75 amps at up to 20 volts. I am sure such things will turn up on Ebay. I found a lesser one last year that gives 10 amps at up to 30 volts and it's very useful. He fixed the CD box which tested faulty straight away, it was just a dry solder joint with the vibration. £25, I wish the rest of the rebuild was that sort of price Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 Wez, I know a guy just outside MK who designs and builds heavy duty PSU amongst other stuff. We use him a lot through work for repairing smaller SMPSUs, but I know he does much larger stuff too. For example I recall he designed a supply for milk float motors some time back, now that's big! I can pm his details if it helps. It may be worth you talking to him as he may have something off the shelf that he could modify to meet your requirements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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