For some time I have been considering what to do about portable power for QRP, specifically with the Yaesu FT-817ND I bought back in late January. (And which, damn it, I dropped last Thursday on the porch while struggling with the screen door and a handful of other stuff, and managed to bend and break the AF-SQL/RF control…so now it needs to go to Yaesu for some TLC before I can use it again. Damn it.)
I’ve got some computer UPSes sitting around that no longer work when power is unapplied, so I pulled the batteries out of one of them to see if they could be salvaged or if it was the batteries that were actually causing the problem. Since the batteries (7.5Ah AGM’s) were both charged and would successfully take a charge when discharged, it’s fairly clear that the UPS electronics were hosed, at least in this case.
I didn’t have another UPS like this one and the others didn’t contain this type of battery, so at first I was thinking I’d just build a two-battery, 15Ah power box of some sort. So I went looking online for designs or suggestions and found this.
The only thing I didn’t like about the Joulery Box was that it was simplistic; four batteries, a circuit breaker, and two Powerpole outlets. In my way of thinking, the box isn’t just for Amateur Radio, it’s also for emergency power at home during a blackout. A box like this ought to be able to charge phones, for instance, or run some 12V LED lighting or whatever — not forever, just overnight. And I wanted a meter on the case so I could monitor voltage and not run the batteries down so far as to ruin them.
So voila, the KC9YTJ Battery Box, with an LED voltmeter and a dual USB charging port. The meter and the port are downstream of a switch so they can be turned off to conserve power when not needed. (I figure I can just flip the switch to check the voltage.) At this point, I just need some piggy-back terminals to finish wiring the batteries in parallel, and to fasten the batteries down so they don’t shift in transit. The rest is done and tests fine with one battery. As with W4KDA’s Joulery Box, the batteries are charged through one set of the PowerPoles. Eventually I may use a solar panel to trickle-charge the box through a charge controller, but right now it charges fine with a Deltran Battery Tender Junior.
Here are some current pics. When I get the battery bus wired, I will post another picture of that, but right now as you see, the batteries are just sitting in the box waiting patiently.
