Hi Erich, Greetings! Hope you and the nipper are well.
You have supplied some very good information. Regarding the rest of your email: YES ... if you want to maximize the life of the batteries ... you really do need a smart charger to charge your SLA (gel cell) batteries. The charger you showed in your post is almost certainly OK, but I have no idea what is BEST. Technically, you would need to draw up a specification to match your exact needs, and then see what matches it. [Of course I fully understand that when it comes to writing Specifications, in many cases the exact opposite occurs: Find a product that MIGHT do the job, and then write the specification to match that product description! ......A regular procedure in the 3rd world, especially if (large sums of), money change hands. Funny about that good match! Of course such practices would never happen in OZ, and in particular in Australian Tertiary Education Centres ..... would they? ] Ross is keeping away from batteries being sold from China. I have no experience of this, but modeller friends, use "Hobby King" -based in Hong Kong - extensively, with good results. If you want to go down the home-build route for your charger, you might want to have a look at a kit. Altronics - Perth based, but now with many outlets - puts out a kit No K1685. This can be built either as a 12V or a 6 V system by changing a few components, all of which are supplied so that at the end of the day you will have a few spare parts. I suspect that the design comes from the "Silicon Chip Magazine" people, so you can check out their site too, if interested in "best" parameters. I have not checked, but no doubt Altronics can supply you with an adequate kit to build a useable SLA battery tester too! However if you are regularly doing 10 or more hours in a single flight, without battery depletion problems, then I suggest that you do not need a battery tester. Battery technology is currently changing rapidly. There has been relatively recent extensive discussion on this site, and I refer you to the archives, for that mass of information. It is very apparent that what is "cutting edge" today, will be very shortly supplanted by something else tomorrow! On p 64 of the March/April edition of Gliding International there is a note re "Alternative for Lithium Batteries" where experiments are being done at Virginia Tech in which sugar is being used to charge mini fuel cells, with the ultimate aim of producing a biodegradable, high energy density, low price, battery. Hmmm! I use very ordinary SLA batteries (2No 7Ah in parallel, with a 7Ah back-up tail battery), in my glider, and at this point in time see no reason to change to something more exotic: Much more expensive, and potentially much more hazardous. However if you have a battery weight problem then go for it. Did I mention that I had a failure of ALL my (very old), batteries at the same time in an October 2013 flight? Very interesting: Sh*t happens! So much for back-up! (Note: The mechanical Sage vario worked OK.) All these batteries were replaced via 2 local eBay sources, both of which provided a 12 mth warranty on their high quality, brand-name product: Incredibly cheap, about $60 total - including "free" freight in both cases. Absolutely no problems to date, and I would expect 4 - maybe 10 years tops, life from these batteries, with maybe 400 full recharges in that time period. Regards, Gary From: aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net] On Behalf Of Erich Wittstock Sent: Tuesday, 11 March 2014 3:25 PM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Hand Held Radio Battery First up the fishing rod: ..it is 2014 After a long debate - they did put the internet on computers. ;-) There is a handy search engine that works in a web browser - it is called Google. can be found at: http://www.google.com.au type in "FNB-64" into the search. and on the first page you will find something like <https://www.google.com.au/search?q=FNB-64.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozill a:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs&gfe_rd=ctrl&ei=GIkeU_j5Ds_C8gf qoYG4Cg&gws_rd=cr#channel=rcs&cr=countryAU&q=FNB-64.&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:o fficial&safe=off&tbs=ctr:countryAU> this. ..and <https://www.master-instruments.com.au/products/57686/TWB-FNBV57H.html> here is a fish. You could get really adventurous and do a search on Ebay <http://www.ebay.com.au/> and get a result such <http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Two-way-Radio-Battery-Replacement-for-Standa rd-FNB-64-FNB-83-/160942976753?pt=US_Radio_Comm_Antennas&hash=item2578f2eef1 > as this. And now let's make this thread a bit more interesting: I would like to find out about the Ebay experience of the people on this mailing list with purchases such as batteries for hand held radios? And: what are people using to charge their SLA glider batteries (what is the BEST charger?) Do I really need one <http://www.antenergy.com.au/index.php/noco-g1100-genius-smart-battery-charg er.html> of them? What is the best test to find out what capacity the glider battery actually has - not just what is written on them. What is a good SLA battery tester? I went through the archive of this list and found LiFePO4 being mentioned. Who uses LiFePO4? Interesting <http://soaringcafe.com/2011/01/new-technology-in-glider-batteries/> article here. What is your experience, how long have you used them now? Are they worth it? Erich On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Ross McLean <ross...@bigpond.net.au> wrote: I am hoping someone can help me find a battery supplier for my VHF Handheld radio, the battery has finally given up. It is a Vertex Standard Pro V, VXA-150, and the battery product number is FNB-64. Thank you for any assistance. ROSS _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
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