[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by phrontist

We were going to use a voltage regulating IC connected to the power supply through the breaker board.

If you do use a voltage regulator be careful about the heat it generates. If you're dropping from the 12V battery voltage down to 5 volts, then you're dropping 7 volts across the regulator. Even drawing 100 milliamps from the regulator will cause it to get very hot. You'll want a heatsink to dissipate the heat or the regulator could go into thermal shutdown.