All the APP connector blades (inserts) that I have seen which will take
#10 or larger wire (30 amp) must be crimped. They have "fingers" that
must be bent over the wire. Use a proper crimper for PowerPoles,
substitutes will make a mess of the job and mess up the contacts.
If you wish to use a bit of solder after crimping, that should be
possible, but first crimp with a proper crimping tool.
The 20 amp contact blades can be soldered, but the largest wire they
will accept is #12.
An alternative for less voltage drop is to shorten the cable rather than
increasing the wire gauge.
73,
Don W3FPR
On 12/20/2016 6:29 PM, Nr4c wrote:
PPs solder real well. Just keep the solder off the outer portion of the round
part where the wire fits.
Sent from my iPhone
...nr4c. bill
On Dec 20, 2016, at 5:34 PM, Gary Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Jim & the others who replied,
This is a follow-up for someone in the
future who looks for the same solution.
Yeah, the small amount of difference in
the wattage is insignificant but
considering all the radios I've owned, the
low end of the bands were always the
highest output. 10M was usually the lowest
output & with the K3/K3s, 6M was always as
good as the other bands watt wise and 160
was full output. This not being the case,
I was concerned.
I had done the calibration and raised the
output to 87W but that was it. As was
suggested, I raised the voltage from the
PS to give me 13.8V on transmit which
required 14.6V resting. I'm using the
cable Elecraft supplies and I'm suspecting
it could be just a tad lower gauge/thicker
copper to reduce the resistance but on
160M, I am now getting a 115W reading on
the P3 and 113W on the LP-100A.
So the increased voltage was the
difference in my case. A thicker wire
would certainly require less voltage than
14.6 and that's what I am going to look
into. With the power Pole connector, I'll
have to look a little deeper into what
will work best. I have no crimping tool
for Power Pole so that makes it more of a
challenge.
Anyway, thanks Jim & all who suggested the
higher voltage, it was the answer in this
instance.
73,
Gary
KA1J
On Fri,12/16/2016 9:27 PM, Gary Smith wrote:
With the ATU in or out it gives 81W out on 160, SWR is 1.28
All other bands except 6M give around 98W, 6M gives 87W
Any ideas what might be causing the lower output on 160?
81W is 0.9 dB less than 100W; 87W is 0.6 dB less than 100W. On 6M,
it's probably a simple matter of efficiency -- power amps are slightly
less efficient on 6M than on the lower bands.
And there may be a power calibration issue. There's a procedure in the
manual for doing that.
Or even error in the power measurement itself. Few power meters are
specified for better than 5%. Bird wattmeters are specified as 5% of
full scale, and a condition of that is that the slug is in
calibration. If, for example, you're using a 250W slug, accuracy is
+/- 12.5W. I use an N8LP LP100A, which specifies 5% at any power level
from 1W, and quotes 3% typical. 5% is 0.22 dB. 3% is 0.13 dB.
Low DC voltage can also be an issue, either due to the power supply
itself or IR loss in the power cable (or even the connector(s). Use
the built-in metering function to check DC voltage with just the RX
running and keydown. Short, fat copper is your friend. :)
73, Jim K9YC
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