[Elecraft] KX1 battery options with 4w SSB

[Norm Havercroft]

Greetings!

I think I have found a viable way to mount 3v lithium 123 cells.  None of
the catalogues seem to carry holders for them but a piece of PC board could
be used as a hold down mount. Simply make individual cutouts in the board
the same length as the cells but not as quite as wide.  The board would
mount to standoffs affixed using the existing screw holes which should be
enlarged and countersunk to accept the same 4-40 x 1/4" screws used on the
top half of the case.  The design challenge is to correlate the standoff
height with the battery slot width so as to get a good fit.  Spilt pieces of
very soft, very small rubber hose could be used along the length of the
cutouts to hold the batteries firmly in place.  I am still working on
connectors for the batteries.  My current experiment is with small triangles
of PC board soldered at right angle to the holder.  Haven't figured out how
to mount a spring yet.  By placing two cells on each side, you will have
room to spare, which brings me to:

KXSB1.  With all that extra naked PC board laying around, Wayne and Eric
should get to work coming up with the SSB option for this rig.  The kit
could include a new case bottom so that we could quickly switch between CW
only and the full meal deal.  By using the 3v lithiums we could have TFR
with 3-4 watts SSB.  Inserting a shunt in one of the battery slots would
reduce the voltage to 9v and the output to 1-1.5 watts.

I will try and get some pictures of my experiments soon and posted them so
as to make the above description more understandable.  I would also like to
hear from anyone with similar interest.

73,

N7NSD
Norm, KX1 #143