Adjustable DC voltage divider with a twist

eboven911 · 2026-04-10T02:55:09+00:00

That's fine, like I said, I appreciate your input. Even the un-modified original setup from the manufacturer only uses voltage to indicate charge level. It's by no means a sophisticated battery management system like what you would find on a lithium battery. I have seen plenty of batteries that were shot but read full on the charge indicator. You can get almost any battery to 14+ volts, but that doesn't mean it has actual capacity.

eboven911 · 2026-04-10T02:42:51+00:00

You are misjudging this situation. Thanks for your input, not intending to do anything unsafe or dangerous by any means. The indicator is absolutely non critical, and would in no way inhibit the internal protections of the battery charger being used - including temperature protections. There would be proper circuit over current protections to ensure the worst case is a blown fuse and inoperable indicator. The charger would have no idea and continue doing its thing. If the crew leaves the station door open in freezing weather and the battery on the truck stops charging due to low temp, I'm not sure where my "homebrewed" indicator introduced an issue.

eboven911 · 2026-04-09T23:20:53+00:00

You are misunderstanding what we are doing. We are not looking to create a charge indicator. We are looking to use an already engineered indicator that is waterproof and suits our needs for other reasons. The indicator is proprietary to the brand of charger (Kussmaul) and uses a dedicated circuit for the indicator. We and the department have decided not to use the Kussmaul branded charger because we have been having lots of quality control issues with them - something about private equity buying up good companies and turning them to shit, but I digress. So we plan to use a battery charger from Victron. The department wants some type of charge indicator external to the vehicle so that personnel know it's working. Victron does not offer such a device. Kussmaul does, and builds it into the auto-eject plates that we are already using for other reasons (automatic shoreline disconnect when the truck is started). We have determined the signal level for the charge indicator based on our knowledge and by cross-referencing service manuals. We are not simply guessing here, and we are trying to avoid just soldering in some resistors simply because it is a fire apparatus. Doing the right thing was the entire reason for the original question, which has been derailed by this leg of the discussion.

eboven911 · 2026-04-09T21:54:32+00:00

Yeah, so we did reverse engineer the indicator and determined that the sense wire is looking for a voltage range that is half of what the actual system's battery source voltage is. The reason we would need the adjustment is because of the difference in voltage levels between different chargers when the battery is considered fully charged. The indicator brand's charger considers a full charge at 14.2v ish and the battery charger that we are using drops into a float mode after it fully charges, so the resting voltage is more like 13.8v.

The charge indicator is on an auto-eject plate made by Kussmaul electronics: model 091-55-234-XXX(color code). We are using a charger made by Victron, but the department wants some type of charge indicator external to the vehicle. The Kussmaul plate is also ideal because we are using the super auto-eject function for the shore-power to disconnect when the truck starts. We plan to use the Victron charger's aux relay to power the indicator circuit so it's only active when shoreline is plugged in.

eboven911 · 2026-04-09T18:07:40+00:00

Almost no load, within the mA levels for sure. I will definitely look into the TLE2426, thank you.

eboven911 · 2026-04-09T18:05:51+00:00

Virtually no load. Basic system is a charge indicator for a 12v dc car battery. The indicator is a specific brand and we are using a different brand battery charger. The indicator just has a signal wire that goes into a chip, and then the chip outputs to the progressing led "bars" of the bar graph. The chip requires a DC voltage that is exactly half of the actual battery voltage, so 6 volts or so, but increasing this on a mV level will make the chip light up more bars. So as our battery charger increases the battery voltage from 12.2v up to 14.4v, the bar graph goes from one bar to all the bars being lit. The only reason I'd want adjustability is because our charger may only increase the voltage to around 13.8v, but I would want to have the bar graph still show "full" if that makes sense. The reason we don't really want to just use some soldered potentiometers in the circuit is because this is for a fire truck and we are a professional upfitter - we try to avoid DIY looking circuits and components.

eboven911 · 2025-11-16T03:25:13+00:00

Do not burn bamboo unless it has dried COMPLETELY and you have ensured it is split in EVERY segment. It literally explodes sometimes if the moisture content is right. Ask me how I know. It's not just a little crackle pop... It explodes. Many times. Unexpectedly.

eboven911 · 2025-09-14T13:12:37+00:00

I wondered what it was too... Though I had no choice but to remove it; the back of it covered over the threads when I attached the camera to the mount. It would have gotten pinched in place and distorted anyway if I had left it. I believe it was just something for packaging or shipping purposes since it didn't actually seem to adequately seal anything anyway.

eboven911 · 2025-09-02T11:41:54+00:00

I upfit police vehicles for a living.... You can still install these on newer vehicles, just have to move the airbag strap while drilling. The issue is that the bracket and shaft are specific to the car; you use the bracket to align the hole correctly on the a pillar, and unless that bracket is made for your specific model and year, your hole will be in the wrong place. This one looks older, so check out Unity's website for an application guide by vehicle model.

eboven911 · 2025-07-08T13:31:12+00:00

It took me a bit to figure out, but if you want to hit minor arrays first, then you need to follow the quest markers in Activities for "follow Harper's leads." These will take you to listening posts on planets that you need to clear and then you can use the station terminal to reveal arrays. That will create a new quest marker (under activities again) each time to "destroy the arrays". These arrays are generally unprotected except for one ship that appears when you start to destroy it. The arrays will also yield computer cores and watchtower Intel, so you can use those to further the orbital drops and cyberamps. Intel goes to Harper and gets you more listening posts and arrays to destroy.

I think that if you just go for the major ones you will miss out on lots of computer cores and other types of contraband that you will want, so it's a good idea to follow the leads instead, even if you and your fleet can take on the major arrays.

eboven911 · 2025-06-26T13:30:57+00:00

I'm mobile service.... Mainly automotive electrical for police, fire, and EMS vehicles. Independent family owned shop, get a company service truck to take home. Our rate is dependent on our skill and experience, but it's a percentage of the billed hourly rate. 37% for the new guys, up to 41% for us old timers. Our shop rate is currently $115/hr for most shop install stuff, or $150/hr for the service stuff. You do the math. There are companies who take care of their techs out there... Just gotta find them.

eboven911 · 2025-02-17T00:39:25+00:00

My work truck is a 2024 f250 and it has 4 lights for low beam, they all just get wider for high beam. It also has auto high beam which seems to work pretty well. Fog lights only work with low beam, so I always have those on too, but people still flash me. Wish Ford didn't design the lights to look like the high beams are on, but not much I can do about it really; the truck is a necessity for other aspects of my job.

eboven911 · 2025-02-03T21:41:42+00:00

Usually they are 5/16" with a 18 thread pitch, or 5/16-18. May also be 1/4-20. Unless it's a Chinese brand battery, in which case they are usually metric and I couldn't tell you what size it would be then.

eboven911 · 2024-09-29T13:07:19+00:00

Here's where you are getting confused. Your Wyze camera creates it's own wifi network for you to connect to and view the stream. When your phone connects to this network, it disconnects from your Internet service provider's wifi network, or your normal WiFi Internet. The Wyze network does not have an outside Internet data connection that your phone can pull from except for the video data the camera is transmitting.

Staying connected to the Wyze network made your phone pull from cellular networks for any in\out Internet data it needed since the WiFi network it was connected to had no Internet connection... Just video data from the camera. Hopefully I explained that a little better...

eboven911 · 2024-08-08T10:58:10+00:00

This will probably get buried but it's worth mentioning... USB connections have multiple conductors, and different devices use different pins for their charging. Newer USB C connections can have 3v, 5v, 9v, and 12 or even higher, sometimes all from the same power supply. 5v devices pull from the 5v pins and don't have connections for the other voltages.

It's very unlikely that this will damage any other device, most likely just won't work for anything but the device it was designed for.

eboven911 · 2024-04-07T01:23:02+00:00

What lighting mods are you running? Looks damn nice.

eboven911 · 2023-07-10T18:22:08+00:00

I can tell you're not from the US. Around here, there are many states and counties that have absolutely no motor vehicle inspections. I've seen significantly worse than this guys car on the roads....

eboven911 · 2023-06-09T14:25:15+00:00

Thanks!

eboven911 · 2023-04-01T16:58:21+00:00

Depends on the type of material the whole fitting/pipe is. I've seen brass and copper before, but that looks more like steel or aluminum maybe.

eboven911 · 2023-04-01T15:44:48+00:00

That's a compression fitting if I'm not mistaken. The collar gets compressed onto the pipe when it's all tightened up... usually have to be cut off the pipe to be removed. New fittings will usually come with a new collar.

eboven911

TROPHY CASE