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Electric Circus Car vol 2
ESP Support
It's alive!
All hooked up and runs perfectly. I'm making some changes to the body so I won't have pix of the whole deal for a while, but the electric motor is excellent. Good speed and enough torque.
Thank you for your guidance on this project. There is no way I could have achieved this without your help.
I also feel that I got a bargain for the money I spent. It really was put together well and your advice was excellent. The government should put you in charge of more things.
Now I want to hook up 12 volt lights and horns. What do I need for that?
There are two unused connectors coming out of the silver junction box.
One is labeled 'Indicator' and one is labeld 'Brake light'.
I supposed these are 36 volts.
ESP Support
The controller's 'Indicator' and 'Brake Light' connectors do output 36 Volts as you suspected. They are designed for very small loads of 10 Watts or less so I would not recommend using them for a horn or headlights.
To run 12 Volt lights and horn from the 36 Volt battery pack a DC-DC voltage converter will be needed, or they could be run from a separate 12 Volt battery that is dedicated to running the lights and horn.
These 12 Volt accessories should not be run from one of the 12 Volt batteries in the 36 Volt battery pack. If this is done then the battery in the pack they are run from will discharge more than the others which will create a Voltage difference between it and the other batteries. This Voltage difference will then amplify every time the batteries are discharged and recharged until one of the batteries is undercharged and the other two batteries are overcharged, which will damage the batteries and significantly lower their lifespan.
We carry 12 Volt DC-DC converters on this page: https://electricscooterparts.com/voltage-converters.html
If you decide to install a DC-DC converter then it will need to have a switch between it and the 36 Volt battery pack. Otherwise if it did not have a switch then it would cause a phantom load on the battery pack which would slowly discharge it when the car was not being used.
Here is a wiring diagram for our DC-DC Voltage converter:
The DC-DC Voltage converter is fairly straightforward to install as shown in the wiring diagram above. We could also make a kit with a DC-DC converter, toggle switch, and wiring harness with connection terminals.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Maybe for now, I'll use a separate 12 volt battery for the horn, siren and led taillights.
If I use two of your chrome fender mount 36 volt headlights , can they plug into the indicator and brake light connectors coming out of my controller? If not, what would be a good way to wire them into my system?
It looks like the silver box with all of the connectors is called the 'controller'. If that's the controller, what do you call the black unit with ring terminals?
ESP Support
The silver box that all of the wires go to is called the controller, and the black unit with ring terminal posts is called the reverse relay.
I'm thinking that I should just go with the 12 volt lights and get a 12 volt battery and run lights, horns, sirens etc all from separate 12 volt battery. My car is supposed to be an old timey thing, and I think your chrome headlights LIT 2512 will look better than the black round utility tractor lights I can get from an auto parts store.
Most of my shows are during the day and even when I do use the lights, it's only for 15 minutes a day. I use the 12 volt Aooogah horn, a little siren and some LED strip lights.
What can I use to distribute 12 volts to six different devices. What about some kind of terminal strip with six or more positions? I'll use toggle switches for the lights, and the car still has the buttons for the horn and siren. I need the two headlights, a battery and some way to distribute the power. What do you think?
ESP Support
An easier to install and less expensive solution would be Wago pluggable terminal blocks which only cost around 75 cents each. Here is a link to a page they are sold on: http://www.newark.com/wago/222-415/terminal-block-pluggable-5-position/dp/28K2062
Here is a photo showing how they work:
These type of connectors are only available with holes for up to five wires however two of them could be joined together with a jumper wire in order to be able to wire seven output wires to a single input wire.
Although not necessary and space consuming, the wires and terminal blocks could be contained inside of a PVC junction box for a tidier appearance. http://www.homedepot.com/p/4-in-x-4-in-x-2-in-PVC-Junction-Box-E989NNJ-CAR/100404097
OK. Wago it is.
I guess all I need to do is go to your site and order the lights, switches, and a battery.
Is there anything else I can order from your site for this?
ESP Support
Yes, I need a battery charger. I have the type with alligator clamps, but I would want to be able to plug into a port. My 36 volt charger has the three pin port and I would want the 12 volt to be different, so there would be no mistakes.
I'm just guessing at which battery to get, so my guess is BAT-12v10A. What do you think?
My 36 volt charger has a 3 pin XLR connector and I want to get something different for the 12 volt charger.
When do I choose 2 or 3 port and what is meant by 'inline'? Assuming I want or need the 3 port, would CHR-12v1A3P be a good choice?
ESP Support
I imagine that the horn and siren will only be used intermittently so the average load on the battery will be much less than 180 Watts. If the average load was let's say 90 Watts then the 10Ah battery would last for around 30 to 40 minutes before it needed to be recharged.
Great idea to use a different charger port for the 12 Volt battery so that a charging Voltage mistake could not be made.
A CHR-12V1A3P 12 Volt 1 Amp charger is a good size for a 12 Volt 10Ah battery, and if a 10Ah battery is deeply discharged a 1 Amp charger will recharge it in 12 hours.
Either a 2-port or 3-port inline plug would work. On the 3-port plugs only two of the ports are used and the third port is not used. I recommend getting a charger with 3-port inline plug though because they are more common so they cost a little less. The 3-port plugs are also a little stronger than the 2-port plugs because they have an extra pin.
"Inline" is a term that we use for a certain type of charger plug and port. This is a term that we started using 15 years ago because we heard them called that and as far as I know it is used exclusively by us. It winds up that "inline" refers to any plug that attaches to the end of a wire or cable (in line) and does not refer specifically to the plugs that we call "inline". However by the time we realized this it was too late and we had already established calling them inline plugs so there was no turning back.
I'm ready to buy the battery, charger, charger port and 6 switches with the attached wires, fuse holder and fuse and the headlights.
Is this something you put together as a kit or should I just pick out the parts in your online store?
I don't really understand how I would use the Wago connectors. I need to take a positive wire and a negative from the battery and then connect them to around six different things. The battery has push on connectors, so only one wire is attaching directly to the battery. It seems like I need something like this to divvy up the juice. What do you think?
Rick
We are getting close to completing this project.