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#1
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Battery Saver?
This item prevents your thermoelectric cooer from draining your car
battery to the point where you can not start your car: http://koolatrononline.stores.yahoo....ery-saver.html Can something like this be easily homebrewed from a couple of 30/40 amp horn relays and a couple of pots? That would permit its use for the same purpose in mobile QRO radio. I tested one and it open the circuit at 11.5V and closes it again at 12.8V. The dead zone is needed to prevent cycling. Ken KC2JDY |
#2
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Battery Saver?
Chevy454 wrote:
This item prevents your thermoelectric cooer from draining your car battery to the point where you can not start your car: http://koolatrononline.stores.yahoo....ery-saver.html Can something like this be easily homebrewed from a couple of 30/40 amp horn relays and a couple of pots? That would permit its use for the same purpose in mobile QRO radio. I tested one and it open the circuit at 11.5V and closes it again at 12.8V. The dead zone is needed to prevent cycling. Ken KC2JDY You can get a smart charger for less than that, and just keep your battery topped-off at all times. |
#3
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Battery Saver?
Chevy454 wrote:
This item prevents your thermoelectric cooer from draining your car battery to the point where you can not start your car: http://koolatrononline.stores.yahoo....ery-saver.html Can something like this be easily homebrewed from a couple of 30/40 amp horn relays and a couple of pots? That would permit its use for the same purpose in mobile QRO radio. I tested one and it open the circuit at 11.5V and closes it again at 12.8V. The dead zone is needed to prevent cycling. Ken KC2JDY Ken: If your relay "reliably" will not actuate, or will drop out at 11.5 volts, then you may wish to trust it to keep from depeting the battery so far you can't start the vehicle. However, having tried similar methods (including a variable settable sensor that then controlled a relay to allow use of "accessories" such as ham radio xciever, I found the best solution for me was to have a separate battery that powered the radio equipment (charged via a battery isolator diode) from the alternator, so the starting battery wasn't affected at all. This worked for both a tow vehicle (89 chevy silverado pickup) and a marine installation (19ft ski boat with entertainment electronics, marine and and ham radios) such that I could be on the water all day without the engine running, end up with the radios and cd player inoperable and still start the engine to return to the marina (of course, everything worked as soon as the engine started, and I had a bypass switch so I could run the marine radio from the starter battery if there was an emergency...) Though you may want to do with only a single battery, after several different configurations, I really prefer a second battery for entertainment and radios. Thus I knew that when the radios crapped out, I still had a FULLY CHARGED battery to start and run the engine, whether on the water in the land based tow vehicle. It's been more than a few years since I ran that configuration, but would do it again in a minute if I even thought about "long term operation" without the engine running. In the truck I currently have mobile ham radio, I don't have the second battery, but am careful to start and at least idle the engine if I run the radio for more than an hour, just to keep the battery up to normal levels... I probably helps that the radio isn't spec'd to run below 12.0 volts, so I tend to watch the voltage that shows on the radio display and any time it looks like it's dropping, I get the engine running. Of course, as I age, I find my operating time between moves has been decreasing, so the actual times I have to remember to start the engine are pretty rare... [sigh] --Rick AH7H |
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