<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">In a message dated 3/31/03 6:54:27 AM Pacific Standard Time, tomanekw@saic-abingdon.com writes:<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Just FYI</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000080" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">I did use a similar two-battery system; the problem is that you have to find a high capacity diode (I used at least 1.5 Amp or higher, which is better). The voltage drop is 0.7 for silicon diodes, this works well with 5C batteries. However, using diodes introduces an additional single point of failure but having two independent systems balances this to some degree. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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There is no single failure point in the system as I described it, you would have to have a failure in both legs at the same time. Failure of the diode would simply put you back to a single battery system. The whole idea of this scheme is that it is truly redundant from battery to receiver.<BR>
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Bob</FONT></HTML>