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shizzzon

16v\18v Daily setup, How to do it?

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It's time to start doin some more research so time to get as detailed as possible with how to do this.

I am planning on installing air ride in my car soon so i can upgrade my small 12v battery bank to all 16v batts and swappin my mechman alt with an external regulated system charging at 19v.

This will be for me and everyone else interested in doing this-

12v batts float around 13.0v. They typically get charged with a 14v alternator at 14.4-14.9v.

16v batts float around 17.3-17.9v. They typically get charged with a 18v alternator at 18.5-19.3v.

So now we got the basics covered.

Most car audio amplifiers are not 18v capable. There maximum voltage input ranges between 15-16v. So, as you can see, most car audio amps cannot even run on a 16v battery with car off.

But the amps that are rated for 18v... this is where it gets tricky.

I have no experience with running 16\18v yet, but i got some pretty interesting insight from db-r and sundown the other day.

18v capable amps can definitely be ran off of 16v batteries with car off but running them with car on with regulator set at 19v is a 50\50 toss up as to what wil happen.

1 side of the story says the amp can handle it fine, the other side states it may work as long as the protection circuit doesn't kick in!

So this info is going to be critical to know when doing 18v daily setup! It may be necessary to attenuate the voltage output on the alt to the mid 18s just to keep the amp on! Not to worry though, if you have some resistance in the line by the time the voltage gets to the amp, you are in luck, lol.

OK, so now, how do we setup somethign like this?

We have 16v batteries in the back for car audio but the car AND mid\high amps are only supported for 12v purpose...

Well, this is where i'll be asking a lot of questions, :)

This is for SINGLE alt installation.

You will need an externally regulated alternator set around 18.5-19v depending on application.

You will need a 16v starting battery and more of them in the rear.

I have read to not use the 3 post kinetik batt as the majority of power draw will come out of the 12v post instead of the 16v post, the alt will only charge the batt up to the point of where the other 2 2v cells that make up the 16v are topped off leaving the 12v side non topped off or even fully charged resulting in battery failure in the near future. This came precisely from Powermaster a couple yrs ago.

So, there is a 12v stepdown module...

Question time-

This step down module is rated for only 25A continuous use.. Any car will require more than this on a daily basis so am i suppose to purchase multiple quantities of this step down transformer and wire them all in parallel then run them all to the main car's power line?

My starting battery is grounded to body of the car. My rear battery bank is grounded to the body of the car. I have perfect voltage readout at the front and the rear. There is no need to re-ground to a different location is there? 12v grounded accessories in the car have no effect on itself or the 16v grounding system, correct?

It will be impossible to typically give someone a jump or be jumped due to the electrical system.. (i know this).

Anything else i need to know?

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