Police Lightbar Project

Guest
My friend acquired a police lightbar from an old police cruiser, and we
thought it might be fun to use it with our band on stage. I haven't had
a chance to look at it closely yet to inspect the ratings and such, but
I'd like to be able to convert it so instead of running of a car's 12V
battery that it be plugged in to run on 120V AC. I believe this thing
probably draws 30 to 40 amps from the car battery.

Can anybody tell me how I would go about with this conversion? The
light bar has three stages (spots, intersection lights, main spinning
lights). I'm creating a stompbox that we can use to turn off/on each
stage. I know how to do this. I just don't know how to do the 12V DC
conversion to 120V AC.

I hope I'm correct in assuming that I can decrease the amperage
significantly by increasing the voltage (P=I*V) or else it becomes
unusable in an outlet served by a 15A breaker.

Any suggestions on how to do this conversion? It seems that it should
be pretty easy. I just don't know the steps involved.

Jason
 
I would bet a cheap 10 to 20 amp battery charger will work. The light
bar has no internal electronics so the ripple from the charger should
not be a problem.
Dave
 

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