There was an old thread on here where they discussed what type of battery/power supply could be used instead of using an extension cord and POE. I cannot find it anymore. I know some of the suggestions were to use a rechargeable 12 volt battery, a UPS, and some others. Looking at the specs, the power supply gives 24 volts to the units, not 12 volts, unless i am reading wrong. What are some of the suggestions on what type of battery/charger to use for this? Also, does anyone use a PDA/IPAQ for their testing/setups, and if so which one is the best to get? Thanks.
i know you guys know what im talking about, can i get a response…
I think you can use 3 piece of handy 9V (transistor?) battery, with a stabilizer (what will keep on you at 24V instead of 27V). As Canopy takes about 15-20W, it will work 1-2hours at least. For longer surveys, i’d recommend 2x12V UPS batteries, or the best is a 300VA merlin gerin UPS. It has a wall outlet, 200W capacity, and very lightweight. (dont need any hacking)
I’ve been running canopy on 12 V for two years so there doesn’t seem to be any issues. My radios take about 6 to 7 watts for the 5.7 GHz units.
Inside the radio is a power supply that generates 5V (and 3.3 and 1.8) for the different chips. That power supply is more efficient at 24V than 12V but not by much. Remember that you can put 100 meters of cat 5 between the power injector and the radio and if you put a 6 watt load on the end, you will find that only about 12V is delivered at the end so Canopy has to be designed to deal with less than 24 V.
I’ve got an 5.7 Subscriber unit (SU) that takes .36 Amps at 18.03 Volts. Thats 6.48 Watts.
The units will work with 6.5V/1A supplies but you need to provide 6.5 Watts and they may stop working at lower tempertures. It would be an ok voltage for a test rig but I wouldn’t install a customer device with that low of voltage.
Note that it appears that canopy is diode protected so if you hook it up backwards, you won’t hurt anything but it would be wise to check for that before you plug in a radio. If your doing a bit of alternate power work, it might make sense to wire up a LED and resistor to a RJ45 connector to build your own tester.
If the concept of voltage and current confuse you, think of voltage as the pressure in a water pipe and current as the flow. If the pressure (v) is too high, you get a leak (sparks?) but if its too low, you don’t get enough flow (current) for it to work properly.
For portable power…
I found the cheapest car battery I could find at K-mart would last about 4 days. Gel cells are good for a few hours as well. I have a power adapter that I plug in to the firewire port on my ibook. I’ve used clip leads to connect to a battery for a drill and of course power from a car.
so if i have a 12V/5 Ah lead-acid battery, that outputs 14-15V under cyclic use and 1.5A initial current max, then that should work for testing purposes? Would this show a lower value under testing (rssi) since the radio is not receiving the necessary power? also, on the leads, there is a white strip on the Canopy supply cord, is that designating a + - , or is it just for looks? just want to make sure i get the right setup. thanks
I’m an installer, going to subscriber sites and doing site surveys to see where the dish needs to be placed to reach our tower. I use an 18 volt battery from a cordless drill attached with clip leads. When the day is over I simply pop the battery into the charger for the next days use.
I cut up the RJ-45 end of a power supply (when can we buy them without the plugs?) and hooked that to the power pins on a firewire jack and plug it into my apple ibook. It powers it and lets me see the results all in one handy package.
Pictures of the device are here:
http://web.abnormal.com/~thogard/canopy/firewire.shtml
thogard wrote: I cut up the RJ-45 end of a power supply (when can we buy them without the plugs?) and hooked that to the power pins on a firewire jack and plug it into my apple ibook. It powers it and lets me see the results all in one handy package.
Pictures of the device are here:
http://web.abnormal.com/~thogard/canopy/firewire.shtml
Say, that's very cool!! Thanks for the link~~
:D