Clansman Battery Refurbishing with LIPO.

[gil]

Hello,

Batteries for the Clansman family of military manpacks won't be available forever... You can still find NOS (new-old-stock) plastic 4Ah and 5Ah batteries but even those, made in 2007, are past their prime. BTW Don't buy any from user Telivo on Ebay! I used a 5Ah 7s LIPO for my PRC-320, but it isn't as practical as a battery you clamp on the radio itself:

I just don't like cables... The LIPO works fine with the hacked remote battery cable I made but it just isn't as portable as a Clansman clamp-on battery. fortunately there is a small 1Ah metal cased battery used with the hand crank. I had no trouble finding a dead one from http://www.clansman-radio.co.uk. Steve has always been straight with me and very accommodating. Here is what I am starting with:

I am missing a DIN 7-pins female chassis plug for the case. The 8-wire lead and DIN male on the photo will be used for balanced charging. I was hoping to include a small digital volt-meter and fuse holder, but it looks like there won't be any space in the case.

My next step is to drill out the rivets to open the case. The cells are supposedly embedded in expanding foam and a pain to extract. Stay tuned...

[m14expert]

Gil

I too have 320 battery challenges.  The Turnigy 8150 is a great tool but I want to totally revamp to Li-Po power.  I am researching everything I can find on the Web so I am very interested in your post and what luck you had with your conversion.

Thanks

Bill Palmer
KJ7DFG

[gil]

Thanks. I have not gotten back to finishing mine yet.. The only difference will be an external balanced charging DIN plug..

Gil.

[m14expert]

Gil

Here is the battery I picked up from getfpv.com.  I had to buy the buy the battery tester / voltage alarm off amazon.com.

Got any good ideas on how to hook this up to either a 320 or351?  Is 22.8 volts enough to power the radio?

Thanks as always in advance

Bill Palmer
KJ7DFG

[gil]

I'd say no, you really need a 7S...

Gil.