Bill, Am on the road now overnight in Abilene...Hi Tom....so can explain
better later cause on the battery at this place...absolutely no
plugs!....anyway:
Diodes come in all sizes and are in everything and cheap and throw away so
often you would not believe. A diode does not really care about voltage nor
does it care about ac or dc. A diode is a simple one way electrical valve.
Current flows one way and cannot flow back the other way. Every twinkle
light on your computer and many flashlights etc are diodes. Ok, they light
up, but so what, they still all do just one thing, let current flow one
direction. It is simple.
Now one your electric drill or your electric golf cart etc you can have a
foot pedal or accelerator and it is no more than a rheostat on your foot,
like a radio knob you turn up and down. With such a rheostat, and a gated
diode with a little built in controller wire, you can adjust or select how
much the diode will let current flow thru. That is how all electric
forklifts, golf carts, etc are controlled nowadays. It is so simple. You can
do it. No question is dumb or stupid. Do not hesitate to continue to ask
anything until you are satisfied with your knowlege. I will stay with you on
this until you get all the info you want.
Enough about basic diodes. If you live in Houston go to ace electronics on
dacoma at 34th and pick up a couple of 10 amp diodes. They have direction of
flow choice for ease of installation. Experiment. Just put the diode or any
junk diode on your positive lead and connect a light bulb of the same
battery voltage to the other side of the diode and back to ground. You will
see that only one way will light the bulb, then reverse of the diode end to
end and nothing will happen, the bulb won't light. So you see you can charge
thru a diode, two 12v batteries connected in series or daisy chained to
obtain 24 volts, and yet charge both batteries as if only 12 v as long as
you don't let the 24v get back to the12v charger but flow only one direction
thru the diode. There are so many uses for using simple diodes, that you can
only imagine all the things that are already done. Don't worry about flow
direction. Just get a test light bulb and play with the thing. You will have
fun with it. A bad diode simply will do nothing, they always fail in an
"open" mode, never shorted closed. If you get too little size of a diode, it
will just overheat and burn up open mode. Bigger is always better with
diodes.
Every battery charger made of any size from your cell phone to your RV
charger and bigger like for forklifts, absolutly have to use diodes. They
must use at least one. The better ones use two, none use three, and the
really expensive ones will use four, to get a full wave dc conversion. Every
tv, radio, any device you plug in except your toaster and a light bulb has
diodes. Every thing electronic you see discarded on the side of the road is
just packed full of diodes. Some devices have really big ones. You'd be
surprised the goodies in those discarded junk electonics that would cost
hundreds to go buy.
-Eddie- (713)694-8084 24hrs or email, EddieHuffstetter@hotmail.com
>> or using one diode, you could charge both 12v batteries with one 12v
>>chargers, and still daisy chain the batteries for your 24v needs and center
>>tap for your 12v needs.
>>
> Can you explain how this is done? Or do you just reconnect the charger.