[Elecraft] K3 battery power

[Jim Brown]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:32:08 -0400, Steve Ellington wrote:

>Is anyone using full time battery power and trickle charging?

Sure -- since about 2004, I've run all the gear in my shack from a big 
12V deep discharge battery that is float-charged by a $10 dollar no-
name supply that I bought at a hamfest. Now that I'm running SO2R, I 
have two batteries and two chargers. Everything is wired in parallel. 
All the gear is quite happy. It's a big on-line 12V UPS. :) In addition 
to the K3s, the 12V bus runs a VHF/UHF transceiver, power amps for that 
rig, 12v lights in my Ten Tec antenna tuners, and an AM/FM car radio 
that plays the local jazz station when I'm not hamming. :)  

I have no isolation at all between the power supplies and the 
batteries, but I do have a DC Ammeter in line between one of the power 
supplies and its battery as a sort of sanity check. The voltmeter built 
into the K3s tells me that the power supplies are regulated to 14V, and 
don't overcharge the batteries. The only things that doesn't run on 
this 12V system are the computer and the power amps (which run on 
240VAC). The computers are Thinkpads with good batteries. If I had to, 
I could run the Thinkpads from that 12V system.

We live in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where it's common to lose power, 
sometimes for the better part of a day. This UPS system protects me 
from that quite well. It's also great for Field Day -- you don't go 
down when the generator is shut down for refueling. 

73, Jim K9YC