12V Power at home

temchik

temchik

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Hi All,

more newbie questions :)

Ok, so I can buy a base station for cheap money, problem is - it's a 12V (or whatever it is 12-15VDC) "mobile". How do I power that at home? I know of a couple of options, but none of them specific to powering 60W radio equipment. Or this is frowned upon and I need an actual base station designed for stationary use?

Thanks!
 
There's lots of 120VAC powered 12V (actually 13.8V) supplies out there. For a 60W rig you'll need at least 15A which means you should get a least a 20A supply. Remember, with power supplies, going a little soo small is a big problem and going a little too big is no problem.

There's lots of manufacturer's out there, but if I recall, Jetstream has a good reputation.
Here's a cheap 25A one: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamps/5226.html $85.

Probably a better 25A choice would be: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamps/5337.html $110. You get a meter and the cig lighter socket will put otu 10A, just like your car, instead of the cheaper one's 7A.

Put 30A Anderson PowerPole connectors on the radio, power supply and your car. That's the universal standard in Ham Radio for 12V power connections, so anywhere you go you'll be able to plug in.
 
temchik said:
Hi All,

more newbie questions :)

Ok, so I can buy a base station for cheap money, problem is - it's a 12V (or whatever it is 12-15VDC) "mobile". How do I power that at home? I know of a couple of options, but none of them specific to powering 60W radio equipment. Or this is frowned upon and I need an actual base station designed for stationary use?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
The standard for ham radio DC power is 13.8 volts. The most straight forward way is to use a power supply such as this one:

ASTRON
RS-35A
35 AMP SUPPLY

There are cheaper alternatives, and you may be able to get away with less than 35 amps, but you also want to plan for the future. These are available used all the time at ham flea markets, and on eBay.
 
A 6-10 amp 12 volt power supply will do it for you. It is a good solution, you can use 1 radio for both your base and mobile.
60 watts at 12 volts is only 5 amps draw total. i would try to go 20% over that to be safe. If the output voltage is higher the amperage requirements get less
 
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n1bsbri's suggestin of the Astron is a good one too. It's a linear supply, so it's bigger and heavier, but it's guaranteed not to put noise in your radio like the switchers can. The Jetstreams are generally found to be quite. At home I have nothing but linear supplies, but I got them all cheap at ham flea markets.
 
cockpitbob said:
n1bsbri's suggestin of the Astron is a good one too. It's a linear supply, so it's bigger and heavier, but it's guaranteed not to put noise in your radio like the switchers can. The Jetstreams are generally found to be quite. At home I have nothing but linear supplies, but I got them all cheap at ham flea markets.
Click to expand...
I like linear supplies for radios. You definitely can get them much cheaper at flea markets, the new price is a little "shocking".

ETA, I have had an ASTRON RS-35M for a lot of years as my main power supply for the HF and VHF radios. Someone gave it to me because it had a broken fuse holder.
 
You just need a 12V power supply that can handle the power. If you really only have 60W worth of equipment, you can get by with a pretty small power supply. 60W is only 5A @ 12V. Something like this would be more than enough for your needs.
 
ToddDubya said:
You just need a 12V power supply that can handle the power. If you really only have 60W worth of equipment, you can get by with a pretty small power supply. 60W is only 5A @ 12V. Something like this would be more than enough for your needs.
Click to expand...
The 60W is the RF output, I assume. The radio is only 50% efficient or so. Typically a VHF mobile in this power class needs a minimum of 10A.
 
Ham flea market, huh? Need to check into that, I always tend to buy a lot of stuff in the beginning all new only to use 20% of it :)
 
There's a ham radio flea market at MIT in Cambridge every 3rd Sunday in the spring / summer / fall. The last time I went was last year and it seems like there's more computer stuff and not so much radio gear, but a power supply is pretty common and I bet you could find one on the cheap.

http://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit
 
Can you use a computer power supply? I have made a few 12v supplies from old computer power supplies for charging rc plane batteries. There are videos on YouTube to do it with parts from radio shack.
 
[STRIKE=undefined]Probably not. I doubt the 12V outputs are strong enough. Computers don't use a lot of 12V and you'll need 15A or more of 12V.[/STRIKE]
Never mind. See posts below.
 
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The last one I built put out 27amps in 12v. And was $50. Bought it at tiger direct.
 
MX338 said:
The last one I built put out 27amps in 12v. And was $50. Bought it at tiger direct.
Click to expand...
I stand corrected!
It's been years since I paid attention to computer power supplies and they've changed.
There are 2 possoble problems, noise and...

Ideally you would be able to tweak it up to 13.8V. I know my 100W Yaesu FT-857 forces the output power down to 20W when the input voltage is well below 13.8V. It's assuming the car is parked and running off the battery without the generator helping. It may also not be able to make full power without 13.8V in.
 
you can use a battery like a gell cell and use a battery charger to keep at full charge.
this link is to what i use for a power supply alinco dm-330fxt

detail.cfm
 
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