I share your delight! I have only used my recently acquired 4200 mAH LiFeP0 battery a couple of times so far, but as you say they are impressive.
My point of reference for batteries is when I started playing with them in the 1950s. Comparing this beauty with the old wet lead acid cells, or zinc carbon batteries (the only choices available) puts a smile on my face!
G day everyone . I run my ft 857 at 100 watts with my 8400 / 30c LiFe and one of the out side cells now has a bulge and is not charging up as much as the others. Pushed my luck a bit but was told it could be done. It still holds plenty of capacity to run my kx3 or rigs around 30 watts so I won’t be trying that trick again. I have now done 3 full seasons of activating with my 4200 /30c Zippy LiFe , it is a great battery and has done a great job with no signs of dyeing yet. Have fun Karl hope you get to activate a few more with your set up.
regards
Ian vk5cz …
Which reminds me that back in the 50’s it was easy to get ex WD NiFe batteries, which were used in military vehicles. They were larger than lead acid for the same power but could handle greater extremes of temperature and were rumoured to last forever!
Yes, I aired one of my recently purchased 4200 mAH LiFePo4 batteries on Tuesday for the first time on Cracoe Fell, G/NP-032. I made 13 2m FM QSOs at 40-50 watts output from the FT-1500M and at the end the battery was still providing 13V on receive. I reckon I took about 2 to 2.5 AH out of it. Purchased the batteries from the Hobbyking UK warehouse. They are 500 grams lighter than the Ultramax 7 AH LiFePo4s that I use on HF with the FT-857, so a little easier for carrying.
Without a doubt LiFePo4 is the way to go these days, the days of the LiPo are numbered.
Carbide was readily available, and I did discover how explosive a mixture of acetylene and air could be, to the detriment of my eyebrows! Held me in good stead when I learned to weld in later life, though
For portable use, with my FT817ND, I have two, 4s1p, packs made of A123 cells type 26650. These packs each run for about 1.5 hours of typical use or almost 2hrs if I used headphones. 5W output.
13.2V/ 2.5Ahr LiFePO weighs 13 oz (370g) (which is 148g/Ahr) 26650 cells
12v/7Ahr SLB weighs 5lbs ( 2.2Kgs) (which is 324g/Ahr)
I wonder how well the smaller sized LefePO cells would handle the 2A peak draw of the FT817ND. Opinion is that they wont like it…but has anyone tried the 14500’s or 18650’s,
I may give that a go… Is there enough juice to operate for ~40mins at 5W?
I’m on a radio system weight reduction effort right now… Reduced my 33oz 14ga link dipole with RG8x down to a 26ga Superstealth wire with 10ft of RG174… weighs 5oz!
On Windows, open Windows Explorer and find the pictures in the file list. Drag the filename and drop onto the box you type in… wait… and… ta da! The picture will appear in the post.
Yes it is that easy. There is a file size limit which I can’t remember, so I always use GIMP to scale the pictures to 1028x768 pixels and turn the quality down when saving the JPG result.