I just bought Jim Kendrick's 33-amp power pack for use with my LX200. I'm
trying to find out if there is a way to tell approximately how much power
remains in the power pack at any given time.

I have the LX200 version of the power pack, with an 18-volt outlet and a
voltage LCD display. Can this display be used to estimate the amount of
charge remaining?

I'm really operating in the dark here (so to speak <g>) because the
instructions that accompany the power pack are very limited and I haven't
started using the power pack yet. I know that when fully charged the power
pack is supposed to read something like 13.6 volts (although mine appeared
to max at about 13.1), and a label says not to use the pack below 10.6 volts.

Does this mean that there will be a continuous and steady decrease in the
voltage output and reading from 13.6 to 10.6 during the lifetime of a
single charge? If so, that could allow me to estimate the remaining
charge, but I would then be concerned about components, such as dew remover
heaters, being damaged by running them at only 11 or 10.8 volts? Is this a
potential problem?

I asked Jim Kendrick some of these questions a couple of times via e-mail,
and he tried to answer them very briefly (I know how busy he is trying to
satisfy the flood of orders), but I am still very unclear about this. He
did say that third-party devices to measure or estimate the remaining
charge are rather expensive.

And a related question -- when recharging the pack using the quick-charge
6-amp recharger, how do I know when the recharging is complete? I don't
see any indication on the pack itself, and there were no instructions with
the recharger. The only thing I can guess is recharging is complete when
the red light on the recharger goes out and the green light comes on. I'm
not so sure, however, because when I did this immediately after I received
the pack in the mail, the voltage indicator showed only about 13.1 volts
instead of 13.6.

Thanks.

Evan H. Zucker
San Diego, California

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