Posted: 3/5/2008 7:04:31 AM EDT
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I would like to make an external battery setup for my Yaesu FT-817 and need some recommendations. I know batteries are heavy but I need something fairly compact that can be stuff into a backpack with everything else. I was thinking about using 1 or 2 small gel cell batteries but really have no clue where to start shopping. Any ideas? --Scott |
| i heard a coversation on our local repeater between 2 hams talking about a similar rig. the one mentioned going to rat shack and using a rechargeable battery like the ones they use in back up power supplies for computers. im sure there are several options though. |
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Once I used a Dewalt drill battery and used clip leads to the terminals inside the 'post'. Be careful not to get them reversed. The new 36 volt lithium packs from Dewalt can be taken apart and the batteries tapped at 12 volt points a few places. Light and lots of power. ETA will you have any place to recharge on the trip? If not lithium AA's might be the most bang but expensive. |
This is not precisely backpackable, but the battery behind and slightly left of the 706, is an 8 amp hour gel cell with a simple powerpole connector on top. I forget the weight offhand, though of course it's significant. More than the radio, I'm pretty sure. 8 amp hours won't do you much for long, but it's an hour or two of operation, it can be recharged, and it's portable. I've seen more sophisticated options using batteries of AA-sized (but not AA) cells that are something different from nimh or nicad. Li-Ion, maybe, but maybe something else. They had more capacity for the size, but the drain had to be carefully designed since they couldn't pump out quite as much as a modern HF can pull if it tries to. The one I saw, and I'm sure ar-Jedi or someone will be around to correct me, consisted of 4 parallel sets of 12 or something of those cells in series. |
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Here you go. www.powerportstore.com/Yaesu%20FT817%20ACC.htm Omni |