DZS Elec 12A DC-DC Step Down Buck Converter Low Ripple with Heat Sink 4.5V-30V to 0.8V-30V Vehicular Voltage Regulator

The output voltage adjustment potentiometer is next to the input voltage posts. When I powered on the supply the input voltage and output voltage were the same. Turning the potentiometer in either direction did not seem to have any effect but I eventually discovered that it needs many turns counter-clockwise before the output voltage started to lower (maybe 50 turns, I am not sure). Then I was able to set the output to the 5.1V that I need for the Raspberry Pi. And it is working great. The heat sinks are connected to the output voltage so be careful not to let anything conductive touch the heat sinks.

I wanted to add some LEDs to my headlights. I had 4 15w LEDs lying around, but no LED driver, so I got this voltage regulator to use as a driver. it is the board inside the box to the left. So far, it has worked flawlessly. I read on another review that this device produces a voltage spike when it is powered on. Being afraid of frying my LEDs, I hooked it up directly to the battery so it would be on all the time, and added a relay to the LED ground. This way, the regulator would be on all the time, thus avoiding that voltage spike. when idle, the regulator draws about 5mA of current (at 12v input, 9v output), and I('m sure most of it comes from the green power LED. I'm sure that removing the LED would drop the current down to 0, if need be. I really can't say anything about efficiency or heat, since the LEDs I installed don't run continuously, but are instead used to flash people when my main lights are off. So far, it has worked flawlessly and I have no complaints.

Hook up your input voltage, hook your test meter to the output and turn the potentiometer and I can guarantee you the input and output voltages will stay the exact same, this is the third unit I’ve received from this company and not a single one of them worked, this is truly a junk product they don’t care about quality control whatsoever you can tell just by looking at the board and how haphazardly it was thrown together. And it was packaged and shipped fine you can tell there’s no damage from shipping so the fact that they sent out three completely defective products especially when they knew the previous ones did not work, is just downright terrible service. Unfortunately one star is the lowest I can go.

This step-down module had the high current rating and compact size to allow me to re-power an elderly but high quality Skil cordless drill with dead and unavailable 12V battery pack to use Black and Decker 20V lithium battery power. The module easily fit inside the defunct battery case along with a small voltmeter module to watch the lithium battery charge, the latter battery mounted with an adapter on the exterior bottom of the case. These modules come set to maximum voltage out, so I had to use the trim pot to adjust output to 12.5V needed. I ended up soldering input and output wiring directly to the module, as I found the provided screw terminals difficult to secure down on these stiff stranded wires. No fan was needed for this app - it does not get hot inside the case even after an hour of hard use. Recommended for such use.

Works well as a buck converter, although my efficiency was lower than expected. Converting from ~20VDC to 14VDC with an efficiency of 74%. For my application, works fine. Had a weird issue where the voltage spiked on power-up to around 50VDC. The voltage quickly dropped down to the calibrated 14VDC, but the 50V spike was enough to damage my circuit board. If you put a resistor across the output terminals (around 10K in my tests), then the spike voltage is severely reduced. Otherwise, good buck converter for the price.

Same day shipping, I was able to run a raspberry pi 5 with a 4g lte cellular modem hat along with an nvme drive hat. Stress tested the power with running gemma 4 e2b while mqtt is running from usb from a meshtastic station g2 to the raspberry pi triggering mqtt upload using the cellular modem. Ran 2x 22 awg solder to 5v pins and another 2x to ground pins. Running all demanding processes at once I never got a low voltage warning. The capacitors handled the power spikes from the modem and cpu at the same time. Solid unit. Time will tell how long this will run on a mountain for a super meshtastic repeater node.

I see so many reviews of people reporting that this converter is broken. I have myself connected the input to the output and the output to the input and the variable resistor doesn't do anything. Note that the variable resister in on the input side and the power led is on the output side. Confusing I know, but the thing works well if you connect it right. I run some high amp astronomy stuff off these in some brutally cold weather. Works great.

Bought one to retrofit a 6v electric trike to run on 12v lead-acid batteries instead of the original, proprietary 6v battery more than a year ago. It still works!