[450] Gel cell batteries for primary station use?

[David McKenzie]

Upon further research, it appears that in order to stay within the "20C"
limits, I would have to have a battery network between 500 and 1000 Ah,
which would be considerably more expensive. Apparently the rule of thumb is
at least one Ah per watt, two to be safe.

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 1:07 PM, David McKenzie <kb1fsy at vhfwiki.com> wrote:

> 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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>
>
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