For those who know me, I'm about as handy as a shovel with a broken handle. That's why I surprised myself this week when I decided to supercharge my kids' 12 volt Power Wheels F-150. Maybe fixing my washing machine with my wife gave me some confidence, or maybe it was completing earlier sandbox, playhouse, play plane and trampoline projects. There's a website called ModifiedPowerWheels.com that made me feel comfortable enough to attempt adding a 6v battery into a series with the car's existing 12v to provide my kids with 18 volts of pure driving power!
We had managed to buy a sweet two-seat $450 vehicle for a mere $100 used, and gave it to my boy for his 4th birthday. Of course, the truck itself is about 5 years old. That means that maybe it wasn't quite as fast anymore as it was back when it was manufactured. So the decision was made to figure out how to make it go FASTER. Any guy will understand. Here is a short clip of it in my garage:
The original Fisher Price set-up is pretty simple. Here's a look under the hood:
And here's my beautiful Paint drawing of what I wanted to make happen; I connect the truck's positive (white) cable (which is red in my drawing) to the new 6 volt battery's positive terminal, connect the negative terminal of the 6v to the (+) terminal of the 12 volt, and run the 12v's (-) back into the car's main negative (black) line:
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Doing so wasn't TOO tricky. I took the positive (white) cable and cut out the middle third, placing a male bullet connector (blue, size 14-16) at the end of the first third and a female bullet connector at the beginning of the last third. This way I could just hook the two back together and run the battery the same tomorrow as I did yesterday if all else failed. HOORAY FOR FAILSAFES!
Then I took the middle third of the positive (white) cable and... cut out the middle third of it (again)! At the beginning of the first 1/9th piece (the first third of the middle third, mind you) I added another female bullet connector, and at the end of the third 1/9th piece I added another male bullet connector. The remaining four ends all get female insulated spade connectors (also blue 14-16).
The M/F bullets hook up first. Then F spade #1 (at the end of the first 1/9th piece of the white positive cable) hooks into the first prong of a 30 amp (green) ATC fuse (with the quarter inch blades), and F spade #2 hooks into the second prong. This is an important safety feature, so if I did something wrong the car won't, you know, catch fire. The fuse would blow instead, costing me a mere $0.50 to replace, instead of my child's safety ever being at risk. F spade #3, on the other side of the fuse, hooks into the positive (red) terminal of the new 6 volt battery (which features the typical after-market 0.250" F2 male spade tip style terminals). Finally, female spade #4 hooks into the negative (black) terminal of the little blue 6v battery.
That's it! The car runs faster now! The only problem is how to charge the new battery. WalMart sells a Schumacher battery charger for $17 bucks. It comes with round terminal and clip-on chargers... neither of which worked for either of my batteries. So I cut off the ends of the charging cables and added my own (after marking each set of cables for the line with the red end, as all four of the cables themselves are stupidly black). The two ends of one charging line got female spade connectors- the same type that I use under the hood to connect to the 6v battery. My Power Wheels charger line I cut in half, adding M/F bullet connectors to one side (the positive) and F/M bullets to the other (negative), just in case (alternating eliminates the possibility of plugging in positive to negative and/or vice versa, which would ruin the battery). Finally, the open ends of the second new charging cables get a male bullet connector on the positive line to plug into the female of the original charging cable (running into the same grey head as before), and a F bullet to connect into the M of the original. Viola! A full charge that took 18 hours before now takes much, MUCH less time, and is more safe to boot, as the Power Wheels charger will overcharge if left plugged in, reducing the life of the battery (and causing heat), while the Schumacher charger senses when a battery is full and shuts itself off safely.
Long story short, all's well that ends well. And here's the proof! Have fun kids!
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