[Elecraft] battery care

[Rick Commo]

Another possibility is the charger shown in May, 2001 QST titled, "An
Automatic Sealed Lead Acid Battery Charger", Bob Lewis, AA4BP.  This charger
was made to be connected to the K2's battery.  It is an interesting design.
You essentially end up using the battery as the power supply, but keep
charging it when the K2 is not transmitting.  The charger is available as a
kit was available as a kit at the time.

A fellow in my local club is using a 45 A/Hr SLA (sealed lead acid) as the
primary power supply for his K2/TS-2000 and a few other things in the shack
and it has been working out just fine.  I showed him the article I mentioned
above and he will probably build that for his K2.

We are both looking into a slightly different version of the same basic
design called the Micro M+ (Oct, 2001 QST).  This charger is  designed to be
hooked to a solar panel, which has a "natural" current limit.  With the
addition of a DC supply and a current limiter I plan to use it to charge my
own 45 A/hr SLA and use the battery as the primary power for my station.

Our club uses battery power for Field Day and it has worked out very nicely.
The big problem is that if you don't use a lead acid battery often it is
very easy for the unit to degenerate.  Like a previous reply to this subject
mentioned, lead acids like a float charge.  After this year's Field Day we
mentioned the need for a club project along the lines of a simple "leave it
plugged in all the time" SLA charger for members to use on their batteries.

Cheers & 73s,
-rick, K7LOG