Gofotu

So here is an interesting topic – a cheap Chinese electric thingie performed better than advertised. Specificially a 240W DC-DC converter; 12VDC in, 24VDC out. It claims to be able to turn 20A of 12VDC into 10A of 24VDC. With the checkered history of price-concious Chinese products one may rightly be skeptical of such claims. And that’s why this genuine Gofotu H10-12-24 both surprises and delights. Not only does it live up to it’s claims, it actually exceeds them!

For background, I’m doing this in order to be able to use my laptop in Project Civic for reasons that are no longer relevant. Moving on.

I bought mine off of eBay, but Amazon seems to be full of them and they all seem to be the same. This particular Amazon listing has specs! https://www.amazon.com/Daygreen-Module-Voltage-Regulator-Converter/dp/B07BKWG9N2

From the above page:

Daygreen P/N: H10-12-24
Efficiency: 95%
Input Voltage: 11-16VDC
Output Voltage: 24VDC
Output Current: 10A
Ripple: 200mVp
Line Regulation: ±0.2%
Load Regulation: ±0.2%
Voltage Accuracy: ±1.5%
Enclosures: IP68
Dimension: 74*74*30mm
Net Weight: 0.28kg
Case Operating Temperature: -40~85°C
Certificates: CE Rohs
Warranty: 1 year
MTBF: 100,000 hours

Application:
12VDC battery of vehicles as input power to 24VDC appliances as output load.

Is all that good, bad, or indifferent? Yes, but it’s just fine for our purposes. From empirical research we know that the laptop does not draw more than ~1.5A. The AC adapter that came with the laptop is rated for 65W; worst case scenario of ~3A. All reasonable so far. But we’re not reasonable people.

We got a 10A adapter because we wanted to account for … optimistic … ratings on these fine import components. And I think it’s only natural for a boy to be curious about about limits of his power supply.  And the only way to find the limit is to go over it.  This is all tracking so far.

Again, because we’re reasonable people, we happen to have a 20A 12VDC power supply. A LINEAR power supply at that; 20A of 12VDC has a lot of gravity. We also happen to have a 300W DC load. And we have assorted lengths of wire. Literally nothing else is required to have a great time.

This bruiser here is our 12VDC power supply.

It’s important to work safe. I happen to know that those clamps are copper coated steel. They can handle the intense arc when the bare-ass connectors rub together  (as is tradition). The TI-84 is in fact rated to act as a 24VDC insulator. Safety is our #1 goal.

The output voltage is dead-nuts on. The voltage at the load is lower. That’s due to the exceptionally janky wiring between the load and the power supply.

Here’s the money shot. ~13A out of a 10A power supply!  That load was a bit of a pisser.  Apparently it’s 300W per two channels.  So we had to connect the channels in series.  I didn’t check the manual, but I assume it’s ok.

… but then it crashed. Still ~13A, just slightly less voltages.

Stable as a table at 12A.

It’s really nice to not only get what you were promised (that bar is on the damn ground), but actually get a little extra.  Thank you Chinese DC power supply manufacturer!