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Reviews For: West Mountain Radio EpicPWRgate

Category: Batteries & Chargers for Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : West Mountain Radio EpicPWRgate
Reviews: 7MSRP: 179.95
Description:
The Epic PWRgate is West Mountain Radio's 3rd generation power gate product. It uses advanced Technology to achieve a very low power loss and has maximum flexibility to charge modern batteries. The Epic PWRgate is a 12 volt backup power system rated at 40 amperes continuous from either a Power Supply or a Battery
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.westmountainradio.com/content.php?page=wmr-products
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0074.3
KC9PHX Rating: 2020-09-04
Works well and worth the investment. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I run this with a Bioenno 20 amp Lithium battery and power supply in the shack, and mobile with go kit. When portable I use a Power Film R 28 solar panel connected and it works great. Very little voltage drop. You need to read the manual and be sure to set the jumpers correctly for the max charge current and battery type. Also set your power supply output voltage accordingly. When using outside of the shack, with the battery and solar panel, it's nice to have the charge controller and it seems to work very well.

I use a N8XJK Super Booster to make my radio happy as it gets a constant 13.8 volts. Keeps things tidy and in order. A bit pricey yet a good, compact and smart product. Your mileage may vary. I give it high marks because it just works great as a central multi-use unit and mountable.
KD7WPQ Rating: 2020-09-04
Good features! but neets improved Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
So I'm using this in my go-box/mobile comm center for power flexibility.
My setup is as follows...
PWRgate Epic -> Super Booster -> PWRgate Epic -> RigRunner

Having two of them I've noticed that both have the same problem of not saving the battery charge configuration via the serial console.
If it looses power it won't charge unless you reconnect to the console and reset or reconfirm the battery charge parameters.
Granted this is pretty easy but if you forget then it is likely that your battery won't charge until you remember and reconnect to the console.
It seems it doesn't matter what the jumpers are set to, it still may not do anything until you confirm or reset the settings in the console menu.
If this is a unattended unit this could be the difference between a dead battery or not and/or your station going offline.

Other than that, I do wish that the MPPT controller didn't make any noise but I understand due to it's on and off switching but when you're operating and need to charge, you just simply need to charge and if it's causing noise on your band this can be a problem.

For the features packed into such a small package I would give this a good review but due to the settings not being persistent, MPPT noise and price, I can only give it a OK review.

It does what I need which is allow me to charge my onboard LiPO battery and/or a external battery without taking up a bunch of space but there is room for improvement of which I hope West Mountain Radio fixes.
For this premium price in needs to be a premium product, unfortunately it fell a little bit short.

I'd recommend the PWRGate only for stations that are NOT unattended and I recommend you keep a eye on your charge light. If it's a solid blue but should be charging or should be green and discharging then connect to the console and reconfirm your charge settings. Upon resetting the settings your unit will respond accordingly.
NM3A Rating: 2018-12-05
Very Good Product Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Seems to do what it says. Very happy with extremely low voltage drop, instantaneous switching between supplies and ease of switching out parts without losing power to equipment. Used to upgrade my power system and provide emergency backup power. Ultimately hope to add solar panel to system.
One minor problem with mine- when I first plugged into USB port, the port physically came right off! Appears to be a poor solder job on the anchor tabs, altho rest of unit looks good. Will see how well WMR follows up on this.
N4TL Rating: 2017-12-16
works great Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this PWRgate on November 20, 2017 from DXEngineering. It is working fine. It has jumpers inside the case to set the battery type and charge current. But of you leave them off you can set the parameters with a utility program that can be down loaded from the West Mountain Radio website. The utility program is called WMR Diagnostics Utility. It enables the USB – COM port. If you double click on the line EpicPWRgate in the program, a window opens up that shows the information coming from the unit. The window is a serial port program. I stopped using that one and switched to a program called PuTTY. It is a serial port program too, but with it you can save the data in a log file. If you type S in the serial port program, the PWRGate will let you view and set the parameters. If you keep pushing enter without entering anything, it will show you the current settings without changing any of them. The Epic PWRgate sends a line of data once a second. It sends the state of the charger, charging, Trickle or power supply off, etc. Each line looks like this “Charging PS=14.36V Bat=14.16V, 0.26A Sol= 0.08V Min=36”.
I like this feature because I can make sure I leave the power supply on long enough to fully charge the battery. I added a fuse to my battery like the manual for the PWRgate states. I bought it at an Overton’s marine store. I also added a toggle switch to the battery mounted on the plastic battery case. The switch allows me to turn off the battery when my power supply is off. That stops my radio equipment from running down the battery. I found that the equipment draws current even when they are off, especially if they have a USB port connected to a computer.
73 Tom N4TL
KI0BK Rating: 2017-11-27
RFI when charger is running Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
WMR is known for making great products if not pricey so I was expecting more of the same. The power gate portion works well, and has been improved to reduce the loss and heat of previous products by using power MOSFETs instead of lossy diodes.
The manual warns of RFI from the charger, which is shared by both power supply or solar input, so they include a push button to disable the charger for 30 minutes so you can complete your QSO RFI free. Not sure how well this would work in a day long net operation, when could you re-charge? Operation also requires one to modify (adjust) ones 13.8 volt power supply to a higher voltage for correct operation of the charger. Some may not be comfortable with removing the cover of their PS and making the adjustment. Other issues with the charger on solar, if the panel can not maintain rated output, due to cloud cover, the charger stops, but LED indicates battery full charge (when it is not). Over all a nice unit, but some unexpected surprises from WMR.
N5CSU Rating: 2017-11-22
Terrific Upgrade to PWRGate Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
As a longtime user of the PWRGate, I was happy to see this new unit, which adds a solar controller. This allows you to charge your batteries via solar automatically, even when the power supply is on. The LEDs give continuous status, plus free software allows you to monitor battery and solar status. Using it with 2 100 watt Renogy solar panels, and a 100 Ah AGM battery in the shack. Kudos to WMR for this great upgrade to the PWRGate!
NP2GG Rating: 2017-11-03
An excellent update to the respected PwrGate line of products Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am one of the early users of this recently released product in the West Mountain Radio power product line. This new PwrGate automatically and instantly switches your attached radio and various attached peripherals such as antenna switches, etc., to 12 volt battery backup, just like its predecessor, the Super PWRGate PG40s. This new model now has an input for a solar panel and charges your battery from this panel whenever the panel is attached (and in the sun!) Equally important, the circuitry of the new Epic PWRGate has a voltage drop of .05v compared to up to .37v in its predecessor. This can allow significantly longer Tx time until battery exhaustion. Charging algorithms now include LiFePO4 batteries.

Over the past several days of use I have been using this with a 35aH AGM battery and a 100w solar panel along with an Alinco DM-330MVT power supply. I have adjusted the power supply to output 14.45v in order to fully charge the battery and get it to trickle charge. The solar charge circuitry is MPPT type. I hear no RF noise intrusion on the various bands I have used.

The entire unit is very compact. No heat sinks apparently needed and mine does not get warm from use. Firmware is upgradable with a micro USB interface. A cool feature is the ability to easily view scrolling real time data in a terminal type communication window that is a free software download from West Mountain. It installed quickly and without errors and reads out current status such as trickle, normal charging, no power, etc. It also lists battery voltage, charge rate, solar panel volts and total up time.

Bottom line, so far so good. I'm happy. My radio is happy. My XYL doesn't know.....