SDS200 Powered By 12 Volt Battery

[srpawski]

Anyone use an SDS200 with a LiFePO4 12 volt battery? What type of life are you getting with one if you have?

 

[MTS2000des]

I use one of these to power my SDS200. I ran it for over 12 hours. Had the Belkin UPS left over from an old U-Verse RG. It's nice because it is a true battery revert supply, so the 12V supply has plenty of current (3A) to run the SDS, and when A/C browns out or fails, it runs off the gel-cell and keeps it charged when not on revert mode.

 

[KB4MSZ]

I don't have a SDS200, but I do run several of my portable ham radios with a bank of parallel 4 cell LiFePo4 batteries. This produces a nice 13 V source which stays very well self regulated. Since my radios are demanding a much higher (very much higher) current draw than the SDS200 will, you won't need anywhere near the capacity I use. My arrangement uses four 8.4 AH 4 cell batteries in parallel. Just one of these would run a scanner only radio for quite a while. The voltage on these packs need to be monitored closely, however, as over discharging them will quickly shorten their lifespan. An appropriate charger for this type of battery will need to be used. A link to the batteries I use can be found here.

The charger I use can be found here.

Turnigy P403 LiPo / LiFe AC/DC Battery Charger (US Plug)

Turnigy P403 LiPoly / LiFe AC/DC Battery Charger

hobbyking.com

It is quite convenient due to the simple single balance lead connection to the charger. It operates either from AC (US 115V, cord included) or 12 to 14V DC. My charger is 4 years old now.

Hope this helps

 

[edweirdFL]

Anyone use an SDS200 with a LiFePO4 12 volt battery? What type of life are you getting with one if you have?

I ran my SDS100 for 24 hours using a small battery pack that's built into a portable pack I typically use this for my QRP ham radios or to extend the operations time of a notebook computer.

I have a larger Bioenno Power battery that I'm sure could run it for days. I use this battery for my full power (100 watts) ham radios.

As part of my off grid/preparation setup I also have the solar panels and charge controllers needed to power and recharge these batteries using the sun.

 

[N9JIG]

Years ago I had a Scanner Master internal battery pack for my BC780XLT that made it into a portable, albeit kind weird looking on the belt. It even had a charging circuit that kept it fully charged with the standard power adapter. They even sold a nylon carry case for it. This was before the BC250XLT came out and people were clamoring for a portable version of the 780 and it filled the niche. The whole thing was pretty slick.

I have seen others that have adapter various battery types inside or out of the radio. I had a friend who mounted AA holders on his 760XLT and those lasted about 6-8 hours or so. I had a 12V sealed Gel-Cell connected to a BCD996XT and it ran it for an entire weekend at the campground.

You could fit a pretty decent amount of battery capacity in an SDS200 and with the right charging circuits could even charge it directly from the 12VDC adapter.