There is a mod for the Astron to set it up to float charge the battery with a little cut to the PCB trace and a 10K resistor. I have my shack setup with four 55Ah SLAs in parallel to the Astron. We ran my K3 on FD with a single 55Ah SLA and made around 80 or possibly 100+ QSOs at 100W until I realized the Solar charged 55Ah battery was connected, but the PS was not on.
See the following URL for the Astron MOD details; http://www.arrl.org/attachments/view/User/50572 or the source at; https://ntc.cap.af.mil/RS_Battmod.cfm rebar On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:32:08 -0400, "Steve Ellington" <[email protected]> wrote: > Is anyone using full time battery power and trickle charging? > Considering the high price of power supplies and the security of a full > time > backup system, it would seem to make sense. The K3 draws so little current > on receive that it would make sense to run it this way. I would be a bit > concerned about gas from the battery however. > Currently I use an Astron 35m and I love it but I just bet that it > consumes > more power than the K3! Perhaps the battery/charger concept would be more > efficient? > Steve > N4LQ -- 73 de N6CCH aka Rebar ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
