Putting a Car Horn on my bike?

I have been toying around with a dual tone car horn rated at 12 volts. It works great when I hook it up directly to a 12 volt battery, but when I use my DC-DC converter from Edward Lyen the horn will not function. I have tried running fuses from 10-30 amps, but there is no difference. Other than carrying around another battery for the horn I would like a different option. Are there any DC-DC converters that will allow a car horn to function correctly? Fortunately I have a smaller MC horn that works with the converter, but I would like to turn some heads, not just beep on bye!
Thanks for any suggestions.
Jon

PS.- My battery is a 16 cell 48 volt 20 amp battery.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191347498353?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Here are the specs for the car horns.

I was once told that car horns can draw up to 20 amps. Your DC converter probably can't deliver that much? If you have an ammeter you could measure the draw when you have it hooked up to the 12V battery and it works...or it may even be written on the horn itself.

Yes. I even noticed a spike in voltage on my auxillary volt meter when I use the motorcyle horn. I guess if I want a louder horn I'd have to be comfortable with adding more weight. (Second Battery)

And all it says on the horns are each are 60db 12 volts one high and one low.

I have to use a separate battery to run my car horn (pair of them off of an old 1985 Ford LTD) and car headlight (off teh same car). I've tried DC-DC converters up to around 6A or so and they still can't handle the load of either one by itself (unless I first power the system by a battery plus DC-DC, and then disconnect the battery after turnign on the headlight or pressing the carhorn button).

I don't remember what the actual current pulled by the horn is, but it's pretty high.


There *are* some horns meant for higher voltages, for scooters and such, but i don't know how loud/effective they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3__c2SwrEs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krPQ1PMM00Y

Just tap your battery at 4 cells to run the horn. The power consumed for an occasional brief blast won't have a material effect on the balance. I use this technique to power a Fiam Freeway Blaster.

This is certainly not an acceptable strategy for operating other electrical devices (lights, etc) but in spite of the high amps, the brief ON-time of the horn puts it in the 'inconsequential' category.

I have been using this industrial back up alarm as a horn. It draws 100ma and can be powered by 12V DC- 90V DC. So it does not need a 12V DC/DC converter if your battery is less than 90V DC. It is very loud and works well.

I bought a new frame bag from FalconEV which BTW is an awesome bag, but I put an additional 12 volt battery to run the car horns and motorbike horn in addition to the LED's on the frame, with 3 seperate motorcycle momentary push button switches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBu9S3C1H2s

Skip to 37 seconds to hear the horns. :wink:

I use one of these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DISC-HORN-2-POLE-112dB-A-72V-420Hz-HIGH-TONE-/250514696530?pt=UK_Sound_Vision_Other&hash=item3a53d6e952


run it straight from my 24c lifepo4 pack

nice and loud

You could build a simple circuit using a capacitor that the Lyen dc to dc converter would gradually charge up. May have to play around with getting the right size capacitor; the bigger the capacitor, the more beeps per charge. I would charge the capacitor through a resistor, so that you don't hog all the capacity of the dc to dc if it is powering other things.