[aprssig] In car power solution for GPS 18

[dave at aprsfl.net]

   > I agree. Most GPS units take such a miniscule amount of 
   >power that it 
   > would take several days of operation to run the battery 
   >down. If you 
   
Some GPS's aren't bad, sore are horrible.

The Evermore engines (Deluo units) have commands you can issue to the GPS to
conserve power even more using a windows app (can't think of the name off
the top of my head). 

My "WeeTrak" project (http://www.aprsfl.net/weetrak) will run on it's 2ah
battery with a Evermore GPS engine and a VX2 at 3 watts beaconing for well
over 12 hours per charge before the battery drops below 11.5 volts.  Before
I turned on the power saving options in the GPS, that was only about 7
hours.  Considerable mA savings for turning off features in the GPS I didn't
need.

Another example though is my older Garmin GPS16 I have on my car... It would
drain the battery dead in about 36-48 hours if the car wasn't driven hooked
up all the time.  Had to change that after needing jumped after a 2 day
flight at the airport garage.     It's now powered by a power switching
transistor tied to the output of the 8 volt regulator inside my D700.
D700 is on, GPS is on.   D700 is off, GPS goes off.   No more dead battery.

I also know of a couple guys using shockey diodes with 7ah gel cells in
their cars to run their trackers.  Car running, alternator charges gel cell.
Car off, tracker runs on the 7ah battery.

Just my thoughts :)

Seeya,
Dave
KG4YZY
www.aprsfl.net



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