[aprssig] backup pwr systems

[Joe Della Barba]

You guys are making this way too complicated. You just described a boat 
plugged into shore power. The battery charger charges the batteries that 
run the radio. When you unplug the cord and leave the dock, then you are 
on battery power unless the engine is running. Just go buy a nice big 
battery, gel or AGM preferred for indoors, and a decent battery charger. 
The nice part is the battery charger only needs to keep up with the 
average load, not the peak load.
73
Joe
N3HGB

Ben Lindner wrote:
> Hi Keith,
>
> Do you have a copy of the circuitry used by West Mountain Radio
>
> Ben Lindner
> VK5JFK
>
> VE7GDH wrote:
>> Ben VK5JFK wrote...
>>
>>> What sort of backup power systems do people use these days? eg.
>>> Running a rig from a standard PSU while charging a battery at the same
>>> time and when the mains power drops out the battery will take over and
>>> run the radio. Then when the mains power is returned every thing is 
>>> back
>>> to normal, battery is charged again from PSU and radio runs from PSU.
>>> Any body have any ideas on how to work this or has a circuit that I can
>>> build
>>
>> There must be lots of variations. West Mountain Radio has what they 
>> call a
>> PWRgate. It consists of a couple of 80 amp Schottky diodes and some 
>> other
>> circuitry to keep your battery charged. It acts as an OR gate to 
>> isolate the
>> battery and power supply from each other. The forward voltage drop of 
>> less
>> than 0.3 volts at 20 A. When the AC fails, the battery takes over
>> seamlessly. The power supply should be adjusted to a slightly higher 
>> voltage
>> than normal to make up for the small drop across the diode. They say 
>> that it
>> is a four stage charger ideal for gelled or AGM batteries and can be 
>> set to
>> charge at a 1, 4, 7 or 10 Amp rate. I'm sure there are lots of 
>> batteries out
>> there just floating across a power supply with no proper charging 
>> circuit.
>> The PWRgate does a pretty good job and is better than nothing. I have a
>> couple of these ahead of Rig Runner "power bars" also from West Mtn.
>> Radio. Ahead of everything I have a 3 KW true sine wave inverter and a
>> large battery bank, but I'm powering a bit more than a radio & a TNC.
>> This is backed up by a 2 KW "inverter" type generator that also puts
>> out a clean sine wave to keep things ticking along if the power is 
>> off for
>> more than a few hours. Some people have solar panels and a proper
>> charge controller to maintain their backup batteries. I'll probably add
>> these some time in the future.
>>
>> 73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH
>> -- 
>> "I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"
>>
>>
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