Tim, thanks for your informative email. I would like to have the information on a proper charger, & control circuitry.
I have seen some costing less than $100. and some costing four times this cost. Would a low priced charger supply the control, for the battery, for a high usage repeater? Like a Micor or Master III, without the power supply battery charge circuit. I was thinking about adding two batteries in parallel, which would give the repeater double the current availability. Although, I am not sure which charger, with control circuitry would charge two batteries in parallel. I was hoping the Optima technical folks, would state the best charger for two Optima batteries in parallel is on the high price side . . . and the next lower price unit is . . . I await your reply. I am also interested in the best solar charger & controls. 73's, Jim Kh6jkg. -----Original Message----- From: tahrens301 <tahr...@swtexas.net> To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Mon, Feb 1, 2010 4:04 pm Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Battery system for portable repeater (non solar) I spoke with the technical folks at Optima today, and got some interesting information. 1. For this application, they recommend the Yellow top battery. 2. This battery can be completely 'drained' (down to 0 volts), and be recharged. 300 times - they guarantee for 2 years 3. To recharge from a 0V state, they recommend paralleling another battery with it, and then using a battery charger to bring it up to 13.1 volts. They said that without the parallel battery 'faking' out the charger, the charger may not charge the dead battery properly. Just thought I would pass along this information. Was encouraged by #2. Thanks, Tim
