On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Peter G. Viscarola <[email protected]> wrote:
> Soooo... can anyone recommend: > > a) A nice, light, portable, power supply that's known to work well with the > -1500? I see Astron has a RS-3A that weighs something like 4 pounds... > anyone use that? Anything lighter? > Well, I went digging through my Box of Wall Warts (I save them all) and ran across a small brick (removable power cord) from DYE that is rated at 4A@12V. I get 4W out from my 1500 using this supply. I could not find any new "wandering noise sources" when using this supply either. BTW, if you are looking for small power supplies, I have had good luck with MPJA Online. See: http://www.mpja.com/powersupply.asp Assuming it is not too noisy, at $6 this little supply looks like just the ticket. http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=18776+PS > b) A decent LiFePO4 pack with charger, that'd let you run off of mains or > battery? The higher AH rated 12V packs seem to be rather difficult to find, > and when you DO find them they're often not in stock. > I found a good source for LFP battery packs. The only problem is that they want a 5-day lead time as they build all packs fresh from new cells when you order. They will also custom-build packs to your specs. See: http://www.batteryspace.com/128vlifepo4batterypacks.aspx Their "standard" packs range from 600mAh to 200AH. Most packs with current delivery up to 30A have built in charge/discharge/cell-balance protection boards that will prevent overvoltage or cell-imbalance during charge, and it will cut off the pack when the cells reach 2V/cell so that you don't discharge them all the way. (Total discharge of Li cells destroys them. There is no recovery from total discharge.) Apparently you really can't float-charge Li batteries like you can lead-acid. You have to cut them off once charged. So if you want to make the equivalent of a UPS, i.e. a device that automatically switches your equipment to battery when the mains fail, you actually need a switching system to switch to the battery. If current isn't too high, i.e. up to about 20A or so (I think that the current levels for the 1500 qualify) you can easily do this with Schottky power diodes. If you don't want the voltage drop then a relay is probably in order. If you want to get fancy, a bunch of paralleled, saturated MOSFETs in the negative supply lead of the battery make a dandy switch. > > I'm thinking of going portable this year for the first time, > Go for it! > > Peter > K1PGV > > > -- Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL 3191 Western Dr. Cameron Park, CA 95682 [email protected] +1.767.617.1365 (Dominica) +1.931.492.6776 (USA) (+1.931.4.WB6RQN) _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software.
