Thread: Vetco has cheap batters for voltage smoothing.

I've read various threads about how you can use a battery instead of buying a regulator to avoid spikes switching off the computer during the crank. Whilst I'm still digesting much of what I've read, I did discover that Vetco in Bellevue has a couple of choices of cheap lead acid batteries that might do the trick. It has a load of 0.8Ah 'gel cell' lead acid batteries at $3 each (discount for a box). These are pretty small. It also has some bigger ones (maybe 3 times the size) which are just described as 'lead acid' and are 5.1Ah at ~$10 (if I remember correctly). Obvious the 0.8Ah wouldn't run the computer for long but are sufficient to avoid the voltage spikes if wired appropriately. The 5.1Ah would also give .75 to 1.5 hours of computer run time with the engine off. Being lead acid, I assume that it could just be wired straight into alternator (which is off during a crank anyway) - possibly no diode needed? And then used to power the auto pc. Shove an ITPS in there and you're probably good to go. Maybe with this setup, something cheaper might be doable instead of the ITPS?

I'm not remotely an expert on the above so I apologize if there's anything inaccurate or misleading. It's just the way I'm thinking I'll go (I'm still wholly in the planning stage for my auto pc) and I thought I'd share the findings so anyone local can take advantage of it.

Cheers.