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Contents
1 Step 1 How much power do you use? 2 Step 2 - The Battery Bank 3 Step 3 - What size panel do you need? 4 Step 4 - The Solar C ontroller 5 Step 5 - Mounting the panels 6 Step 6 - Hooking it all up 7 Step 7 - The worst has happend - the bank is flat
The above transformer states that it has an output of 12 volts at 800 milliamps. To convert a voltage and amp rating to watts, we multiply one by the other. 12v x 0.8a = 9.6 watts. - This transformer is capable of powering a device that uses up to 9.6 watts. The device may not use 9.6 watts and so you would need to use a multimeter or kill-a-watt to get a more accurate prediction.
Important Note: You should always look for 12 volt equipment. If your device can not handle a 12 volt supply you will need to get a 12volt DC to X volt DC C onverter which means loosing some power during the conversion. The abovementioned reference devices can handle a direct connection to a 12 volt battery which makes them suitable for solar use. Another important note is that you should only use DC devices. If the device's transformer says it has an AC output, then it will have extra supply requirements that cost more and has a power loss through the DC to AC conversion. Once you have worked out the watt ratings of all your devices, add them together. If we had a powerstation2 and a bullet2hp, we would be using a total of 14.5 watts per hour.
To work out how many watts per day, multiply the hourly usage by 24. For our example PS2 and B2HP, we are using 348 watts per day.
So what size battery bank do you need? You will need a battery bank that will run your tower for a set amount of days without sunlight, and still not be discharged more than 50%. To work this out, we take the daily power usage, multiply it by the number of days , and then multiply again by 2 so we factor in the 50% discharge limit. In the example above of a PS2 and a B2HP, we need 4 days of 348 watts, multiplied by 2. This means our battery bank capacity needs to be 2,784 watts. To convert the watts back to amp-hours, we would divide by the battery voltage rating (12) so 2784 / 12 = 232 Ah total. Lets just round this to 240 Ah. To achieve this, we could have:
2x 6 volt 240ah wired in series 2x 6 volt 120ah batteries wired in series -parallel- to another pair of 2x 6 volt 120ah wired in series 2x 12 volt 120ah batteries wired in parallel.
Types of Batteries Flooded / Wet C ells: The older and more common type of deep cycle battery. Needs maintanence such as water topups. Water is lost in gases when charging. Gel or AGM: Are sealed and maintanence free. There is no gas lost becuase the battery case is sealed and a special solar controller needs to be used so that the built up pressure from the gasses does not damage the battery. Gel or AGM are able to deliver more power, faster and so are ideal for starting engines or using on boats. They work well for our wisp radio towers too.
Types of Solar Panels Polycrystalline: Are cheaper to produce, but are not as efficient as mono. Panels are usually larger for the same watt rating. Monocrystalline: Are more expensive to produce but are more efficient than poly and can capture the more watts per square foot of solar cells.
Overcast Days: Some panels will still capture solar energy when there is a light overcast of cloud (bright white clouds) and they can sometimes work at up to 40% of the panel's rating. You may be interested in checking how your panel performs by using a multimeter and testing the panel's output on an overcast day. Next we will look at the bit that joins everything together
Old solar controllers used to be called solar regulators. This is simply because they stopped the battery getting overcharged and would simply use a relay and volt metre to check when to disconnect or reconnect the panel.
You will want to make sure you get a solar controller that will display the State of charge for your battery bank. This helps diagnose problems if your tower stops working and your customers need it fixed urgently. Sizing solar controllers Your panels will have a maximum amp output current. If you have wired your panels in parallel, you will need to add together the maximum amp output current of each of them - you will want a controller that can handle at least this amount with pleanty of capacity to spare. It may be wise to purchase a controller that handles double the current than what you need in case you wish to add more radios or panels in the future. Also check if you have used gel or liquid flooded batteries and that the controller or regulator will work with your batteries. This is especially true if you use AGM or Gel batteries. The controller needs to be set to charge in a specific way so that it doesnt cause high gas pressure inside the sealed battery. Flooded batteries need ventilation becuase they are not completley sealed and gasses escape when charging. The Load Output One important feature of a solar controller is the load output. This is where you connect your devices. You must be careful with this feature though. Some controllers assume it will be to automatically control lighting and so switches the load output on in the evening and off during the day. For our 24 hour radios, you need to make sure the load output can be switched on all the time and will not turn off by any automatic feature before purchasing the controller. Some controllers like the Steca brand pictured above-right, allow you to press a button to switch the load on or off, or use the menu to enable automatic functions such as turning it on x hours after darkness and off in the morning. The important thing is that it does allow the manual-only switching mode.
During winter, the sun will be on a lower angle than in summer. Because there is more sunlight hours in summer, we are not too concerned if the panel is less efficient because of its angle but in winter, it makes more of a difference. You should therefore mount your solar panel so it is most efficient in the winter. Here is a link to a website that further explains how to mount your solar panel and calculate the angles. It gives examples for a hot water solar collector but the angles will be the same for a solar power panel. Solar Direct's Angle Guide (http://www.solardirect.co.nz/positioning-of-solar-panel-angle-xidc44393.html)
The first step would be to check the solar controller. Some with lcd screens will show an error code to help you diagnose the problem. If its just been raining too long then you will need to add another solar panel and expand the size of your battery bank to prevent it from happening again.
You can disconnect your solar panels, and connect the solar panel input of your solar controller to the 12v output of the generator and safely charge the battery bank and run your tower again. For faster charging, you would disconnect the batteries from the solar controller and directly connect them to the 12v output of the generator.
Another way is to take out some fully charged batteries from your workshop and connect them in parallel to your battery bank - this will flow on to power your devices and slightly charge some of your batteries. No matter what you do to get it going, the fact is that you have to work out what caused the issues, fix it as soon as possible and power up your tower or risk loosing customers. It is not a good for your customer's internet access to disconnect after x amount of days of rain because your battery bank is not big enough to suit your local area.