Just remember...


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Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 1:43AM :

In Reply to: Or just solder 20 diodes in a string posted by chris case on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 at 4:46PM :

the series diodes (Zener or regular) will dissipate as much power as the load. That's fine if you're just powering a gas gage, but if you aim to power the headlights or heater motor that way, you'll be looking at 150-200 watts or so heating up the diodes. Also, while it's true that regular diodes will drop around .6-.7 V each at full load, they will drop a lot less than that at very light loads. Again, that would work fine for a gas gage, or anything with a constant load, but I would not try it, say, with a radio, where you might indeed get 12V drop when the mike is keyed, but maybe only a few volts drop when it's in receive mode, which would be liable to put 20+ volts on the radio and damage something. The switching converter's the way to go, if any significant amount of power is involved.



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