Well of course it's a question of convenience. It's neater and more compact to have the battery inside the K2. Also a major advantage of the battery for me is that it weights the K2 down on the desktop so it doesn't slide away when I push a button. However the main use it has had is when I forgot to turn the power supply on! I like the idea of operating /P but I dislike cold, wind and rain and that's what the weather is like most of the time here, so I have never taken advantage of the K2's portability. :(
Although an external battery could provide more capacity, the K2's battery has greater capacity than the one in an FT-817 and the K2 draws much less power than an 817, especially on receive. It has more than enough capacity for a couple of hours operating. One should just take care not to run it down below a certain voltage, that's all. I made no special charging arrangements for mine, just connected the radio to a PSU adjusted to 14.2V. Julian, G4ILO G4ILO's Shack: www.g4ilo.com 2009/2/1 KBG Luxford <kbgluxf...@fastmail.fm>: > I put a battery into one of the K2s that I assembled. I would not do it > again for the reason that, as far as I am aware, these batteries are not > designed for deep cycle operation. I think that to get the best life from > SLA batteries, one should use a smart charger. With the use of an external > battery, one can have a higher amp hour capacity for little more money - > especially if one wants to be able to use modes in addition to CW. With a > higher capacity external battery, the same amount of usage will not result > in a lower degree of discharge - assuming you do not have recharge > facilities or a solar panel in the field. > > Borrowing a philosophy from software engineering, " let each module do but > one task and do it well." > > FWIW > > 73 > Kevin > VK3DAP / ZL2DAP > > Julian, G4ILO wrote: > > Stephen Prior wrote: > > > Hello Guy > > Yes, I had the same issue and that's what killed the battery for me. By > the > time I had realised and had increased my psu output voltage to 14.5V, > unfortunately the damage had been done. Don W3FPR has some info on his > website and has provided a separate charging input socket for his K2 and I > might do just that. > > > > > I bought my battery from Maplin.co.uk. They specify the dimensions so it > should be easy enough to work out which one will fit. > > Incidentally my battery is still the original one that I fitted in 1999. I > don't know how to test it's condition, but it holds at 11.8V on receive for > longer than I could be bothered waiting. > > ----- > Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392 K3 #222. > http://www.g4ilo.com/ G4ILO's Shack http://www.ham-directory.com/ Ham > Directory http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html KComm for Elecraft K2 and K3 > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
