Hi folks,
I'm hoping to turn my BitX40 into a portable unit I can use for lightweight SOTA, particularly longer missions involving mountaineering or glacier travel.? Ideally I would not use a SLAB and instead opt for some sort of lithium technology for a battery, which makes things a bit complicated.? After digging through the schematic and browsing the group I still have a few questions:
1.? How low can it go?? Is 12v the minimum voltage for the BitX40, or can it go down to the 10.7v minimum of the LD78L09 regulator?? Is this figure different for Rx and Tx?
2.? What is the voltage maximum?? Mr. Farham has indicated that 13.8v is acceptable for the board, but at what point does it start letting the magic smoke out?
3.? How important is power regulation and filtering when using battery power?? Given the variable voltage, would a buck/boost converter be prudent to keep the output at exactly 12v despite the loss of efficiency?
4.? What kind of current consumption can I expect on Rx (with and without the DDS?)? How about Tx?? Mine doesn't arrive for a few weeks otherwise I'd just measure.
5.? Has anyone had experience building voltage doublers?? I'm considering putting one together for the final PA in case more power is needed.
Thanks in advance, and very excited to start playing with this module!
Cheers,
John VA7JBE
