Hey All,

I bought 2 IR Night vision cameras off of ebay and wanted to hook them up to my car. The cameras work at 11-15V DC. I was thinking of hooking one up to look out the front of the car and one to look out the back end by the license plate.

I mentioned this to some people that I wanted to hook these up to my car and they mentioned to get a 12V regulator. What is this regulator?

 

A voltage regulator is just a simple electronic device that keeps the voltage steady and even. It prevents voltage spikes and losses and sort of "protects" your electronics in that manner.

That said, I don't think you need one. Since the camera's have a rated voltage of 11-15 (a fairly wide range) I'd say it's very likely that they have their own regulator built in. Since the charging system in your car will only put out a max of 14.5V (unless something gets fried) and probably is closer to 13.5, you're well under the rated max.