I have a pair of Fox shocks with electronic valving that I want to use in the Arctic skid I installed in my 03 RX-1. They require 12VAC to operate. Is there anyway to get this out of the stock charging system? The only way I can figure out how to do it would be to use an inverter which would step the 12VDC to 110 VAC and then step that down to 12VAC. Seems unecessarily complicated and maybe dangerous. I know there are some resident electrical geniuses on this board. Can anyone help me?
12VAC
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Len Todd
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If you do use an inverter, you need to be careful to get one that gives you a clean sin wave. The cheap ones do not. Electonics need a clean wave. And, then you could run the 120 VAC through a step-down transformer to get 12 VAC.
LazyBastard
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You really need to get the exact specifications for the power input to those shocks to really tell. I'll tell you this though; your sled DOES make A/C power! You just need to tap into it BEFORE the rectifier (the rectifier is in the nose under the beer can holder).
Given that Fox makes shocks for MOTOR VEHICLES, I would *guess* that they are designing it to be compatible with the maximum number of vehicles. If you look at most sleds/bikes/etc. that do NOT have electric start, they have a 12VAC system with a variable frequency (based on the engine speed), using a voltage regulator to keep the voltage at or under 12V. It is with electric start that you begin to need a D/C power system, since that is what the BATTERY needs/provides.
If I were to further this guess, I would SUSPECT that this device would ALSO have a rectifier built in (a rectifier converts A/C to D/C), in which case you SHOULD be able to just plug right in to the D/C power system. This is because I see it as reasonably likely that the actual system is D/C, but designed for compatibility with A/C systems.
Again though, you really MUST confirm the power requirements with the manufacturer.
Also, do NOT plug in any kind of automotive-store inverter. These things (hopefully) convert to 120VAC 60Hz. You then would be running a transformer to convert to 12VAC 60Hz. How do you know that this device likes 60Hz?
Given that Fox makes shocks for MOTOR VEHICLES, I would *guess* that they are designing it to be compatible with the maximum number of vehicles. If you look at most sleds/bikes/etc. that do NOT have electric start, they have a 12VAC system with a variable frequency (based on the engine speed), using a voltage regulator to keep the voltage at or under 12V. It is with electric start that you begin to need a D/C power system, since that is what the BATTERY needs/provides.
If I were to further this guess, I would SUSPECT that this device would ALSO have a rectifier built in (a rectifier converts A/C to D/C), in which case you SHOULD be able to just plug right in to the D/C power system. This is because I see it as reasonably likely that the actual system is D/C, but designed for compatibility with A/C systems.
Again though, you really MUST confirm the power requirements with the manufacturer.
Also, do NOT plug in any kind of automotive-store inverter. These things (hopefully) convert to 120VAC 60Hz. You then would be running a transformer to convert to 12VAC 60Hz. How do you know that this device likes 60Hz?
LB, I was hoping you would chime in here. I know from your work on the RX1 bar warmer mod that you must have a lot of electronic knowledge. I am trying to get some answers from Arctic Cat about compatability with 12VDC. If I don't get a response do you think you could determine if there is a rectifier in the circuit if I post a picture of the shock circuit board? I know that AC is fed into the RX1 rectifier regulator box. I have thought of tapping into these AC lines ahead of the box and even puchased a separate regulator to convert to 12Vac. I am worried about possibly damaging something or causing the sled to run poorly because the 2 circuits will share the same chassis ground. Your comments will be appreciated.
LazyBastard
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You can certainly post a picture and I can tell you if a rectifier is visible, which if it is not, doesn't mean that it is not there.
I would think that as a Fox shock, you should contact Fox about its specifications, I doubt that you'll get anywhere with cat.
Also, since I now know that it came off a sled, I can say that you can just pull a voltage regulator off any old 2-smoke, wire it into the A/C lines, and be done with it.
Regarding sharing chassis ground... The A/C ground will already be tied to the chassis.
I would think that as a Fox shock, you should contact Fox about its specifications, I doubt that you'll get anywhere with cat.
Also, since I now know that it came off a sled, I can say that you can just pull a voltage regulator off any old 2-smoke, wire it into the A/C lines, and be done with it.
Regarding sharing chassis ground... The A/C ground will already be tied to the chassis.
LB, I sent an email to Fox yesyerday and got a reply back today. They didn't supply the K2 shocks to Cat. The respondant thinks they are are likely Arvin K2. I agree not to expect much from Cat. The easiest thing to do will probably be to have a separate system. The regulator I have is from a Polaris. It has one wire and mounts on the chassis. I assume it just shunts the excess voltage to ground. How do I isolate the AC circuit ground? I know a little bit about electronics and have seen that some audio amplifiers isolate the audio channel ground from the chassis ground with a resistor. Is this what you mean? Can you help me to design the proper method?
LazyBastard
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This is basically how the chassis *SHOULD* be wired. Note that voltages are all relative things and describe only the potential for electron flow. Now the way that A/C is generally described is a little bit confusing - Neutral doesn't really mean neutral, it means that we are *assuming* it to be neutral in order to simplify the way we understand it.
The voltage on the neutral line will be alternating just like on the HOT line. The fun part of A/C D/C mixed circuits is that in a shared circuit, the D/C + and - lines can be thought of as alternating as well, just that they are alternating in PARALLEL, which means that the electrical potential (voltage) between them remains constant, which in turn means that they are NOT alternating, at least not with respect to each other. Confused yet? Thats why we "call" the A/C neutral line.... neutral.
FYI: unlike in my diagram, the rectifier and the voltage regulator may be joined into a single "magic box".
The voltage on the neutral line will be alternating just like on the HOT line. The fun part of A/C D/C mixed circuits is that in a shared circuit, the D/C + and - lines can be thought of as alternating as well, just that they are alternating in PARALLEL, which means that the electrical potential (voltage) between them remains constant, which in turn means that they are NOT alternating, at least not with respect to each other. Confused yet? Thats why we "call" the A/C neutral line.... neutral.
FYI: unlike in my diagram, the rectifier and the voltage regulator may be joined into a single "magic box".
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LazyBastard
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You don't. Not necessary, or even possible, since A/C neutral is already tied to chassis.
Nope. In audio systems, you are very concerned about noise. Since the chassis will be tied to the power grid, it is subject to all the noise and voltage variation that the power grid contains. What you are describing is a little more complex than a resistor, but its general purpose is to eliminate circuit noise.
Plug the voltage regulator onto the RED wire (according to my diagram), then power the shock off after the voltage regulator and against chassis ground.
LazyBastard
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Actually, the one thing that concerns me here is the output voltage from your voltage regulator. If this is too low, then it will be sucking up the power that would otherwise go into charging your battery. Test the charging voltage before and after installing the extra voltage regulator to make sure that it will still charge the battery properly. I really think that it would be a MUCH better idea to power the shock straight off the DC power system, but you definitely don't want to be doing any kind of big complicated mess.
Don't want to interfere too much on your chat but if i had to speculate, i'd say that:
For shocks... then electric valving inside. AC valve coils do good but with fixed frequency, so not compatible with snowmobile stator, be it raw or rectified(not regulated). So i suspect that rectifying/regulation is part of the shock module and that the valving is a DC one. There is no problem to feed good DC from your system to those shocks if really, there is a rectification circuit at the front stage. If this is a 4 diode bridge type then polarity does not matter, if this is a 2 diode type, then one way does nothing & inverted works. So getting info to confirm the front stage of your shocks's electronics might save you time & assles.
For shocks... then electric valving inside. AC valve coils do good but with fixed frequency, so not compatible with snowmobile stator, be it raw or rectified(not regulated). So i suspect that rectifying/regulation is part of the shock module and that the valving is a DC one. There is no problem to feed good DC from your system to those shocks if really, there is a rectification circuit at the front stage. If this is a 4 diode bridge type then polarity does not matter, if this is a 2 diode type, then one way does nothing & inverted works. So getting info to confirm the front stage of your shocks's electronics might save you time & assles.
Thanks for the advice so far guys. I'll try and post some pictures of the circuit board in the next couple of days. I'll also let you know if I hear anything back from Cat.
I took apart the front arm shock last night and found that the circuit board is embedded in a black rubber-like compound. So much for posting some pictures. I've heard nothing back from Cat either. I'm going to call Carver performance and see if they can help me. The last year of the Smart ride suspension was 2002. There must be some company that has some knowledge of these shocks and rebuilt a few by now.
