Jim Vincent wrote:
"Andy" wrote in message
oups.com...

If the battery is near death will it provide the current required by
the upconverter? It's not magic and you can't get more power out of
the upconverter than you put in. I'm curious to know if you have
measured the performance with a "battery near death"?

snip


Haven't tested near death, but actually was part of the thinking. If the
battery is near death, it has a little juice left. If the radio would not
tolerate a low voltage, then I could upconvert.

This is an interesting idea. By using 12 volts until the radio is close
to unsatisfactory operation, you avoid the efficiency losses in the
converter. At that voltage, you switch on the converter and make
available the rest of the battery's capacity, though with a 10%-15%
capacity loss in the converter. Still, you'd get 90+% of the battery's
capacity, instead of 50% (or wherever your radio becomes unsatisfactory).

This might be a solution for Udo, the original poster. I suggest he try
the Datel converter (UHE-15/2000-Q12) mentioned by Tom Seim, as it is
cheap, very small, totally enclosed, wide temperature range, and with
excellent specifications for regulation, ripple, and
overload/overvoltage protection. I can't guarantee it will work since I
don't know of anyone that's tried it in a glider, but it's the one I'd
get if I had Udo's problem. Of course, the converter would only be used
to power the radio, not the other instruments.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA