I've a yamaha rhino to which I'm in the process of adding various electronic accessories. One of my concerns is having sufficient available and stored electricity for the various accessories. As to storage, the stock battery is rated at 35ah and I've now added a second 35ah battery parallel but through voltage sensing relay type of isolator, which should prevent items connected through it from draining the stock battery but allow it to charge when there is excess beyond my stock accessories' demands. All stock accessories will remain drawing from the stock battery. The new accessories will pull from the second battery. Ideally I would like enough amps to maintain both batteries. But, a slow drain of the second battery with all accessories on will be acceptable to me.
To help a little, I've switched the headlight bulbs from 35w halogens to 20w leds (they've also roughly doubled my lighting) and will be changing the tail/brake light bulbs to leds. However, I will be adding an led light bar, as well as a fairly powerful stereo. Stereo and especially light bar choices remain dependent on available power.
My rhino is an 06 model. Its stator produces about 320 watts at a typical driving speed. With stock lighting and accessories, it would typically be using about 60-100 watts running during daylight and 130 to 175 at night. I believe there are a couple of high output stators available in the 400-450 watt range but I'm not looking to upgrade the stator just yet.
One of the items I have installed is a heater. It has a three speed dc fan motor. The motor is an 11a motor on high. I'm not sure how many watts it uses on low or medium. But Im assuming its 44w, 88w and 132w (but, then again, I don't understand how these things work other than that the 3 speed switch from the unit, if sold separately warns that it does not make a single speed motor have 3 speeds but requires a 3 speed motor to work). As it turns out, this fan is pretty powerful, even on low, and especially in the small confines of a rhino. In fact, about half of its air output on low would be about perfect.
Anyway, I've noticed a number of pwm dc speed controllers on ebay and amazon. They seem reasonably priced. My question is whether, unlike a resistor, using a pwm controller to lower dc motor speed will reduce power consumption, and if so, how much?
Rodney
To help a little, I've switched the headlight bulbs from 35w halogens to 20w leds (they've also roughly doubled my lighting) and will be changing the tail/brake light bulbs to leds. However, I will be adding an led light bar, as well as a fairly powerful stereo. Stereo and especially light bar choices remain dependent on available power.
My rhino is an 06 model. Its stator produces about 320 watts at a typical driving speed. With stock lighting and accessories, it would typically be using about 60-100 watts running during daylight and 130 to 175 at night. I believe there are a couple of high output stators available in the 400-450 watt range but I'm not looking to upgrade the stator just yet.
One of the items I have installed is a heater. It has a three speed dc fan motor. The motor is an 11a motor on high. I'm not sure how many watts it uses on low or medium. But Im assuming its 44w, 88w and 132w (but, then again, I don't understand how these things work other than that the 3 speed switch from the unit, if sold separately warns that it does not make a single speed motor have 3 speeds but requires a 3 speed motor to work). As it turns out, this fan is pretty powerful, even on low, and especially in the small confines of a rhino. In fact, about half of its air output on low would be about perfect.
Anyway, I've noticed a number of pwm dc speed controllers on ebay and amazon. They seem reasonably priced. My question is whether, unlike a resistor, using a pwm controller to lower dc motor speed will reduce power consumption, and if so, how much?
Rodney