[RFI] Battery charger recommendations

[Jim Brown]

> 
> Suggestions?
What are the loads that you plan to run from this system? Radio gear 
only, or also stuff like lighting, computers, etc? What are the radio 
loads? Do they run on 12V? 100W radios, SO2R, what modes? What are the 
duty cycles for use of the gear? What fraction of the time will you 
spend transmitting?

How much solar illumination do you have? Have you tabulated all the 
loads and duty cycles? Have you redesigned lighting to use LEDs that can 
run directly on 12V?

Genasun makes very quiet MPPT charge controllers for small systems, and 
for all three primary battery chemistries. We use them both with solar 
panels as power sources and with re-purposed power supplies for obsolete 
Thinkpads. This Bay Area company exhibits at Pacificon and Visalia.
https://www.wiredco.com/LED_Lighting_Low_Voltage_s/1874.htm

I'm lighting my shack with five of these strips 
https://www.wiredco.com/LED_Strip_Light_12_Volts_SMT_Cool_White_20_p/ledbar1.htm

and about 10 inches of LEDs from

https://www.wiredco.com/300_SMD3528_Flexible_LED_Cool_White_Lighting_Strip_p/flexibleledcoolwhite.htm

I would NOT by anything from them but the lights and switches -- 
certainly not power supplies or connectors/adapters/cables, etc.

A Thinkpad 20V 4.5A charger keeps up with my K3s in a contest running on 
a 100Ah Bioenne LiFePO4 battery, and a 16V 4A Thinkpad charger keeps up 
with other ham gear, video monitors, antenna switching, and shack 
lighting running from a 100Ah sealed lead acid battery. 120V gear 
(Thinkpad, two rotators, PSU for SteppIR controller) runs on 120V, 
backed up with a good UPS. I have no backup for power amps.

Be sure to use twisted pair for all DC and AC wiring (and remember that 
charge regulators work by chopping DC, so DC wiring is really carrying 
DC. When panels and/or batteries are in series, be sure to maintain 
twisted pair in the series loop that connects them for charging.

73, Jim K9YC