Originally Posted by Multibiker
Thanks for the heads up. I was considering buying one of these from Batteryspace because of the price. They also sell the TrailTech light with their "14.8V" Li Ion battery pack which puts out 16.8V fully charged.
Can you give us some details on the switching regulator you are going to use?
I think if I was going to do it again, I'd just buy everything from TrailTech. If you use their battery and lights, then everything should be good. Also, having dealt with TrailTech, I think they're going to be very good to people who have failures while using 100% their equipment. They understandably can't do many favors for people who are buying their bare lamp assemblies and frying them due to ignorance (like I did).
Anyway, I wrote up a page on the voltage regulator.
http://www.hauntedfrog.com/wiki/?VoltageRegulator
The regulator works but it's still a work in progress, it's not super-stable. The voltage goes up from 12.65 to 13.25 when the temp drops from 60*F to 0*F. I'll be working on that.
To be honest, it's probably too much work. I'd probably just go with a 12v or 13.2v pack in the future, or just buy a 100% TrailTech solution. By the time I got done buying a smart charger for my BatterySpace battery, I could have bought the TrailTech LiIon pack for the same price and saved a lot of time and trouble.
There is a drawback to LiIon; it works horribly at low temps, so I'd have to keep it inside my jacket. But I think I could live with that.