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KXPA100 on battery.

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Jose Rivera

KXPA100 on battery.

I just purchased and put together a KXPA100 Amp. I want to use it at home with my power supply (same one
Elecraft currently sells). But I also want to use the amp with my KX3 out of doors in a portable situation.
I tried my KXPA100 with my 12v 22ah battery and I received a "LO SPPLY" message on my KX3 along with the
bottom right reading "PA FLT". Go in touch with Elecraft and my battery is not up to the task of giving my
KXPA100 12-15amps. I will recharge my battery and try again.

Question: Will a voltage regulator like the N8XJK Super Boost regulator work and or work well with my
KXPA100? Does anyone use their KXPA100 portable with a battery?

Jose N2LRB

www.n2lrb.com

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ae5ka

Re: KXPA100 on battery.

Jose -

The N8XJK boost regulators will do what you want with a few caveats.

First, they do introduce some conversion inefficiency themselves - they
will draw about 10% to 20% more power from the battery than will be
delivered to your radio. Just the nature of boost converters. This will put
quite a strain on your battery in any event. You won't get a full 22 amp
hours of use from it, i.e. I wouldn't expect much more than an hour of
operation at best before it became unusable, but until then everything
should work well..

Second, since it is a switching type power supply it may introduce birdies
on receive. Naturally this will be worse if near the antenna, or if there
isn't a choke on the coax going to the antenna. N8XJK does have a more
expensive converter that senses RF and only activates boost during
transmit, and takes the converter out of the line on receive. That should
take care of the birdie problem.

I have used one of their converters in a marine environment, and it worked
well. I haven't used one in portable ham operations.

Chip
AE5KA

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 5:27 PM, Jose Rivera <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I just purchased and put together a KXPA100 Amp. I want to use it at home
> with my power supply (same one
> Elecraft currently sells). But I also want to use the amp with my KX3 out
> of doors in a portable situation.
> I tried my KXPA100 with my 12v 22ah battery and I received a "LO SPPLY"
> message on my KX3 along with the
> bottom right reading "PA FLT". Go in touch with Elecraft and my battery is
> not up to the task of giving my
> KXPA100 12-15amps. I will recharge my battery and try again.
>
>
>
> Question: Will a voltage regulator like the N8XJK Super Boost regulator
> work and or work well with my
> KXPA100? Does anyone use their KXPA100 portable with a battery?
>
>
>
> Jose N2LRB
>
> www.n2lrb.com
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]
>

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Don Butler

Re: KXPA100 on battery.

In reply to this post by Jose Rivera

I have done a fair amount of portable operation with a KX3, KXPA100 and
CrankIR vertical using a 12 v deep cycle battery .... and have ALWAYS had
issues when I try to run 100 watts even when the battery is fully charged
.... the battery just doesn't have enough ..... so I back the power down to
50-60 watts and it does just fine .... personally, I'm happy to have the 60
watts so have not considered it to be a problem.

Don, N5LZ

-----Original Message-----
From: Elecraft [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jose
Rivera
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2016 4:27 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] KXPA100 on battery.

I just purchased and put together a KXPA100 Amp. I want to use it at home
with my power supply (same one Elecraft currently sells). But I also want to
use the amp with my KX3 out of doors in a portable situation.
I tried my KXPA100 with my 12v 22ah battery and I received a "LO SPPLY"
message on my KX3 along with the bottom right reading "PA FLT". Go in touch
with Elecraft and my battery is not up to the task of giving my
KXPA100 12-15amps. I will recharge my battery and try again.

Question: Will a voltage regulator like the N8XJK Super Boost regulator work
and or work well with my KXPA100? Does anyone use their KXPA100 portable
with a battery?

Jose N2LRB

www.n2lrb.com

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Jim Brown-10

Re: KXPA100 on battery.

On Wed,2/3/2016 3:57 PM, Don Butler wrote:
> I have done a fair amount of portable operation with a KX3, KXPA100 and
> CrankIR vertical using a 12 v deep cycle battery

If you have the bucks, it's worth switching to an LiFEPO4 battery.
Roughly one third the weight for the same Ah rating, and a discharge
curve that stays above 12V until it's almost discharged.

http://www.bioennopower.com/collections/12v-series-lifepo4-batteries

73, Jim K9YC
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Igor Sokolov-2

Re: KXPA100 on battery.

In reply to this post by Don Butler

I have used similar configuration (except for the antenna) with 25 A/h
LiFEPO4 battery and could run at 100W at least 4 hours non stop plus another
hour with 60-70 watt output when battery voltage dropped down somewhat. Two
of these batteries and 120W solar panel allowed 24 hours portable operation.

73, Igor UA9CDC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Butler" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>; <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2016 4:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KXPA100 on battery.

>I have done a fair amount of portable operation with a KX3, KXPA100 and
> CrankIR vertical using a 12 v deep cycle battery .... and have ALWAYS had
> issues when I try to run 100 watts even when the battery is fully charged
> .... the battery just doesn't have enough ..... so I back the power down
> to
> 50-60 watts and it does just fine .... personally, I'm happy to have the
> 60
> watts so have not considered it to be a problem.
>
> Don, N5LZ
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Elecraft [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jose
> Rivera
> Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2016 4:27 PM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [Elecraft] KXPA100 on battery.
>
> I just purchased and put together a KXPA100 Amp. I want to use it at home
> with my power supply (same one Elecraft currently sells). But I also want
> to
> use the amp with my KX3 out of doors in a portable situation.
> I tried my KXPA100 with my 12v 22ah battery and I received a "LO SPPLY"
> message on my KX3 along with the bottom right reading "PA FLT". Go in
> touch
> with Elecraft and my battery is not up to the task of giving my
> KXPA100 12-15amps. I will recharge my battery and try again.
>
>
>
> Question: Will a voltage regulator like the N8XJK Super Boost regulator
> work
> and or work well with my KXPA100? Does anyone use their KXPA100 portable
> with a battery?
>
>
>
> Jose N2LRB
>
> www.n2lrb.com
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message
> delivered to [hidden email]
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]

Bill Frantz

Re: KXPA100 on battery.

In reply to this post by ae5ka

I use one with my solar powered home system. I got it after low
batteries at our California QSO Party operation started causing
interference between our 3 stations. It seems to work well at
home on my K3.

73 Bill AE6JV

On 2/3/16 at 3:56 PM, [hidden email] (Chip Stratton) wrote:

>The N8XJK boost regulators will do what you want with a few caveats.
>... I have used one of their converters in a marine
>environment, and it worked
>well. I haven't used one in portable ham operations.

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