The limitation of car supply voltage (12V) forces to convert the voltages to higher in order to power audio amplifiers. In fact the max audio power x speaker (with 4 ohm impedance) using 12V is (Vsupply+ - Vsupply-)^2/(8*impedance) 12^2/32 = 4.5Watts per channel. This is the figure of the circuit diagram;
The transformer must be designed to reduce skin effect, it can be done using several insulated magnet wire single wires soldered together but conducting separately. The regulation is done both by the transformer turn ratio and varying the duty cycle. In my case i used 5+5 , 10+10 turns obtaining a step up ratio of 2 (12->24) and down regulating the voltage to 20 via duty cycle dynamic adjust performed by the PWM controller TL494. The step-up ratio has to be a little higher to overcome diode losses, winding resistance and so on and input voltage drop due to wire resistance from battery to converter. The output capacitors are 4700uF 25V, not very big, since at high frequency the voltage ripple is most due to internal cap ESR fortunately general purpose lytics have enough low esr for a small ripple (some tens of millivolts). Also at high duty cycle they are feed almost with pure DC, giving small ripple. This supply given me up to 85% efficiency (sometimes even 90% at some loads) with an input of 12V because i observed all these tricks to keep it functional and efficient. An o-scope would be useful, to watch the ripple and gate signals (watching for overshoots), but if you follow these guidelines you will avoid these problems.
