Tuesday, October 17, 2017

12v 8X AA Battery Pack for QRP Portable Radios

I bought this handy little AA battery holder to use with my QRP radios. I picked it up off eBay and it arrived in the mail from China yesterday. Since then, I have charged up eight NiMH cells that I had lying around my garage and placed them in the battery holder. With the sliding lid snapped in place, (see below) the whole unit weighs 11 ounces (or 311 grams).

I do have other battery packs for my little rigs, such as 3S Lithium (or Lipo) batteries. But I am confident this cheap battery holder will prove to be a useful addition to my ham radio equipment. After all, the 8 x 1.2v, 2500 mA/h cells should give me 2.5 Amp-hours at 9.6 volts. That's ought to be enough to run an FT-817 or an IC-703 for a few hours, or any of the Youkits CW transceivers for quite a bit longer.  And if you have one of the brilliant "mountain top" CW QRP HF rigs designed by Steve Weber KD1JV, then the battery pack will probably last for a couple of days or even longer.

What was the cost? It was just $2.15 USD, including free postage from Hong Kong or China.
311 grams or 11ounces with the 8 cells inside. But without a screw, (yet.)

The battery holder even has its own on/off switch and a short cable with a power plug on the end. It is center-positive (+), and fits all my Youkits QRP radios and the Youkits antenna analyzer.

There is a hole in the lid for a locking screw, but none was provided. But any Ham worthy of the name should be able to find something to do the job from his junk box. Right?

Click the link to find the battery pack.
Here is the exact same battery box from the same seller on eBay.

No comments:

Post a Comment