Yes, power goes into the negative side and out of the positive side to feed whatever you're powering.
50 volts is the peak-inverse-voltage. That's how much voltage it can withstand in reverse before it breaks down...not anything you are concerned with here.
A normal diode always reduces the voltage by about .7 to 1 volt in the forward direction regardless of current. What you saw labeled as a 12v diode was probably a Zener diode. That is used for very special applications and is not something you can use for this.
Use the bridge as I have shown and mount it to something cool and metallic. That bridge will have to handle a lot of current. (The back of it is metal, but has no electrical connection, it is for heat transfer purposes.)
Do me a favor, when you get this all running, take a voltage reading on the brown wire right near the reg/rec using the battery's negative post as your ground. Then take the same reading using the black wire at the reg/rec as the ground.
If the brown wire is not the problem, then the ground probably is.
Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2006/04/26 20:40
