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XPR 8400 battery back-up

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FastusBirdus

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Aug 22, 2013
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Looking to implement a back up power system for my seven XPR 8400 repeaters.

Wondering what the most reliable, lowest maintenance method would be. Cost is a factor too.

Obviously, I could install a bank of seven lead acid batteries using the factory connection and the repeater's internal trickle charger. That's a lot of batteries though, and constant trickle charge might not be the best for the service life of the batteries. Furthermore, there is no way to monitor the condition of the battery. I would like to at least figure out some sort of isolator circuit so I could use one battery to back-up multiple repeaters.

I could use some UPS's, but it seems a little clunky and inefficient to use an AC UPS to power a AC to DC power supply, but maybe this is a fair trade off in terms of maintenance.

I've also got a pre-selector that also would need to be backed-up, but that is low enough draw I'm sure I could piggy back it off whatever I decide to use for the repeaters.
 
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N4DES

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Dec 19, 2002
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Can you provide us with the type of facility that the repeaters are located it?
If it is a shared tower site, is there anyone with an on-site generator that you can piggy back off of?

The newer gel type batteries typically have a 10 year life span. I would look at that instead of lead acid.
I have a 100AH running my HOA's UHF repeater and it lasts for just about a week before needing a recharge. Yes one for each repeater would be expensive initially, but over 10 years they would more than pay for themselves.
 
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FastusBirdus

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Aug 22, 2013
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System is located at our manufacturing plant. It only serves that facility. Antennas are located on the building. It's not a shared site.

The only generator on site is nowhere near my repeater room. That back-up generator serves our network servers. To run power from there would not be economical. Everywhere else in the facility we use UPSs.

Historically, our power is very reliable. Just this past week we had an outage due to some storms, so the issue got elevated even though the lights were only out for 15 minutes. First time in the five years that I've been the radio admin that we've had to deal with more than a blip. Our contingency plan previously has been to switch to our talk around channels, but the limited indoor range just doesn't get the job done.

I was looking at some fairly generic 50 AH batteries for each repeater. For the length of time I'm wanting back-up, 100 AH could probably serve all seven repeaters. I'm really only concern with protecting for a fairly short term outage. If the lights are out for more than a couple hours, we're sending everybody home until the lights come back on. I could also throw a portable generator up there for an extended outage.
 
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