24 Volt Batry

[DBGenerator]

I was cleaning up some stuff at work and found a perfectly good 24Volt battery from an UPS.  I have some things that use 12Volts.  What is the most effecient way to go from 24 to 12V?  Voltage regulator, voltage divider circuit??

I don't plan on using to power the house.  Just hooked up to a small wind generator out in the shed for some 12V lights and radio.

Dave

[Nando]

Normally, the 24 volts battery will be formed by 2 - 12 volts battery.

Please detail how the 24 Volts is physically built.

I have seen some UPS that have 24 Volts that under good "examination" were formed by two 12 volts batteries, also, some 48 volts with 2 - 24 volts banks with true 2 - 12 volts batteries.

If indeed you have a true 24 volts single body battery and you need to have 12 volts only, I would suggest to have a PWM = Pulse Width Modulated, voltage regulator to produce the 12 volts, or if the bank has a 12 Volts borne then with a 24-to-12 volts equalizer, you could load and charge the lower 12 volts, so when loading, the equalizer will bring power from the upper 12 volts battery to the lower battery and when charging the lower battery, the equalizer will charge the upper battery, "Pricy" converter though.

Regards

Nando

[crashk6]

Normally if its a battery from a UPS it is two 12 volt batteries connected together in series and physically bonded together with adhesive. If it's from something like an APC UPS there is a plastic cap at one end of the battery assembly that may be removed and the jumper/fuse removed, you then have two 12 volt batteries that may be rewired in parallel. It would help if I knew who made the battery or UPS, then I could tell you positively what you have. What is the amp hour ratting on it? How big was the UPS it came out of?

Now if it truly is a 24 volt battery then the simplest thing to do is run at 24 volts the next best thing is to use a dc to dc converter... but you will be limited by the cost and power handling capability of the unit. You pick one based on the watts you need for powering your loads just as you would an inverter.

hope it helps,

crashK6

[richhagen]

If you can't split it into two distinct 12 volt batteries, then I would agree that a DC/DC converter is the best option.  If you use a shunt regulator, you will be turning half of the available energy in the batteries into heat.  Rich Hagen

[Trivo]

Dave

The simple way to do this is with a 7812 voltage regulator. these will handle up tom 36vdc

the circit is simple See below.

It will supply 1 amp with no heat sink but the whole thing will cost less than $4.00 so you can make a few if you want.

I have put them in my radios and put a jack plug to connect to a battery.

Trivo