[450] Gel cell batteries for primary station use?

[David McKenzie]

Vinnie,

>From what I understand, the gel cells are functionally the same to deep
cycle batteries except that they are sealed, exhaust no vapors while
charging (deep cycle puts out some sort of toxic gasses i think) and cost a
bit more. It is good news that a lot of hams are using batteries to power
their stuff, that means there is a wealth of information out there, assuming
I can find it. A 70Ah gel cell battery appears to be about a little less
than half the price of a 70 amp ICS supply. Looks like you are saying that I
need a float charger from the linear to the battery and then a voltage
regulator between the battery and the equipment. Sounds reasonable, I'll
look more into it.

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Vinnie Grosso <vinnie at vinnievision.com>wrote:

> David,
>
> I think the better answer could be use a 70 Amp deep cycle battery. I
> believe
> you need to have at last 2X times the reserve in the battery, or you will
> get
> reverse EMF back to the radio. You will also need to build a zener based
> regulator to make sure nothing ever gets over voltage. Good news is that
> many hams do this, and the Green movement now has much data on home
> controllers that will have some info as well.
>
> Dam good idea -- even though you do not think you will need it to power the
> radios -- you will at some point.
>
> Also I was running my 746Pro on car batteries, and the noise floor almost
> diappeared -- it's amazing how good 80M and 20M got with the lower noise
> floor.
>
> Vinnie
>
> On 23 Mar 2009 at 11:28, David McKenzie wrote:
>
> >
> > Instead of buying a 70 amp supply or a second 50 amp supply to
> > parallel, I am considering picking up a large gel cell battery and
> > fast/float charger to run the amp all the time and the radios during a
> > power outage. I don't know very much about batteries. Here's what I do
> > know:
> >
> > Rated in ampere-hour, which pretty much means how many amps can be
> > drawn until dead over a specific time (20 hours supposedly is
> > standard). Charging rate should always be 10% or less of Ah rating.
> > Float chargers exist relatively cheaply that allow the battery to be
> > connected to a constant voltage supply (existing astron supply)
> > indefinitely.
> >
> > My questions are really as follows:
> >
> > What size battery would I need to "buffer" a 60-70 amp low duty cycle
> > load to power the amplifier? I'd assume the amp would connect to the
> > battery directly and then the battery to a charging circuit with
> > protections for when AC is removed from the CVS.
> >
> > Since my goal is not long term battery backup but to run high current
> > devices for short periods, would a smaller battery on a constant
> > supply be the best bet? Do you need to match the Ah rating to the
> > instantaneous maximum current draw?
> >
> > Is this just a dumb idea, and I should buy more power supplies?
> >
> > -Dave
> >
>
> The best way to predict the future....is to invent it
> Carl Mangold
>
>
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