I've done quite a bit of reading on solar power for WISP projects. I was wondering if anyone here is running solar, what they've got running off of it and how long it lasts.

I think the info I have is based on a completely different climate than we have.

The highest power usage I have today is 27W, it may hit 50W before summer. I was intending on using a pair of Optima yellow top batteries in series with an 85W solar panel.

Just curious how other people are doing this. It is around an $800 test project for a small business, so I'd rather get it right the first time.

http://www.powerstream.com/tech.html

here is many information about, i have some solar systems based on this information and works fine !

Your latitude will determine the battery and panel size. I am at about 30N and 85 watts was not enough for me. It was ok in the summer, but December and January it was not. Now I use two 135w panels.

Your latitude will determine the battery and panel size. I am at about 30N and 85 watts was not enough for me. It was ok in the summer, but December and January it was not. Now I use two 135w panels.

Hi dude..

do you have any blog to share on it?

I've done quite a bit of reading on solar power for WISP projects. I was wondering if anyone here is running solar, what they've got running off of it and how long it lasts.

I think the info I have is based on a completely different climate than we have.

The highest power usage I have today is 27W, it may hit 50W before summer. I was intending on using a pair of Optima yellow top batteries in series with an 85W solar panel.

Just curious how other people are doing this. It is around an $800 test project for a small business, so I'd rather get it right the first time.

I'm at 44N latitude, not sure about you.

You're gonna need about 300+ w of solar power and 500+ AH of deep cycle battery for 27w minimum. That sort of load is a $2000 parts project not a $800 project budget. Double that budget for 50w.

Any 85 watt panel and 2 car batteries is trouble free for about a 3 watt load based on my experience.

50w = about 4 AH or about 100 AH per day. 1000 AH of battery would go for 5 days without going below 50% charge. It's not uncommon to have 5-10 days or rain/fog/dreary weather unless you live in a desert or something. Going below 50% charge frequently will wear out your batteries fast. You'd also need about 200AH per day to provide 100AH of load and 100AH of charging. In the winter, we get a sum of about 4 hours of charging per day, meaning we'd need 50A of charging current to meet our quota in 4 hours. 50A means about 600W of solar power. In this case, I'd prefer 2000AH of battery for 10 days runtime rather than 5 days.

Best solution is to choose products that have low current draws. ubnt and mikrotik are pretty capable when carefully chosen.

Thanks guys. Confirmed my fears.

Might actually be cheaper to pay the power company.

I am in Tyler Texas about 30 degree. I have a 190 foot tower running on solar. I have 2 RB433AH one with 3 radio cards and 1 with only 1 radio card. I have 2 190' cat5 run down the tower and powered by 24Volt DC.

I do NOT use a POE I power off the plus and minuse of the power regulator.

I have 4 batteries hooked up in seriea and parallel. I have 2 solar panels in series making 24v (28v) charging the batteries. this has been up about 16 months. The only problem I have had is too much power. The Mikrotik boards can't handle 27volts so I have to put diodes in series with the plus side of the cat5 (blue/bluewhite) to reduce the voltage to less than 24 volts. We had several days in a row last winter and never had a power problem.

http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php ... ll#p237245

this would be a solution works fine here for years now
have a look at the fuel cell ...

I am going to read that link tomorrow, getting a bit late here.

GCS, what size solar panels did you use?

There are factor that can help you to determine the right size solar panel that will work effectively to fulfill your requirements.
Solar panels are sized according to their wattage, that is, the number of watts that the panel is capable of outputting. A panel that is rated at 100 watts is capable of generating 100 watts of electricity per hour under peak sunlight conditions when it is 25 degrees Celsius. Solar panels are available in a wide range of different wattages.

I followed this through to conclusion. It is not financially feasible right now. It would actually be cheaper to get a drop from the power company. Rough figures show a little over 4 years before it would pay for itself. By then I'd need new batteries, so the cost goes right back up.

I have a bunch of towers on straight solar and wind - had a few problems until we went straight DC - after that we haven't had any problems.
Get a good controller regulator - not expensive but good ($35-50+) you want one that will do both 24v and 12v so you can mix input based on environment - best supplier is Missouri Wind and Power - these guys R&D their own tech and build it to spec.

Rod Neal
HTWC.biz

BTW - this completely solves the "lightning issue - most strikes come from the power company not bleeding off the static buildup on top high tensions and feed back through you". With straight DC you will not need much in the way of solar panels - 120-400watt - and a good mobile wheelchair battery - get those inexpensive. Most towers with 1-2 MT RB and 3-6 UB systems only need this much. The key - secret - is do your math based on 5.6 hours a day pure sunlight and 8 hours of wind turbine. After that it is easy and cheap and never worry about power again!

BTW - this completely solves the "lightning issue - most strikes come from the power company not bleeding off the static buildup on top high tensions and feed back through you".

I agree. That is what I said a few years ago. Here are a couple pics of a setup that has been in operation for a few years. It is on the roof of a 22 story condo in the "Lightning Capital of the U.S.". Most on the forum thought I was either lucky or nuts. Just so you know, the same router is still there. The lightning rod is in the red circle, and it is hit several times a year. The router is in the outdoor case just above and to the right of the circle, higher than the lighning rod!


I know I am nuts, but I must be really lucky too!

Thank you 0ldman!
Rod

Hi,look at this. We have all kinds of Solar Panel Connectors on our website. http://www.rfsupplier.com/
Hope it could help you. Good luck with you.
Any question,you can contact me.

My solar relay with 3G modem + 711UA-2HnD

i can't believe that this works 24x7 !!

Hi, great solution.
How do you get information about the battery ?

Do you know a charging controller with ethernet ?
So you can see the status of the battery remotly.

BR, Thomas

For solar applications a battery needs to be capable of being discharged hundreds or even thousands of times.Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics , or indirectly using concentrated solar power.

solar energy products

For solar applications a battery needs to be capable of being discharged hundreds or even thousands of times.Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics , or indirectly using concentrated solar power.

solar energy products

Not really, for a long lasting system, you need to only discharge a portion of the battery each cycle.

EG. 225AH Deep Cycle Battery, drain 25 AH battery will last 4-5 years no problem.

Drain that same battery to 50% each cycle, and it might only last a year or less depending on the build quality....

couple of pointers:
a) we do 12v instead of 24v for the RB433
b) we do not use POE to power the RB433

We're using 16 135W panels with 16 200Amps /12W batteries and runs the following for us:

- Cisco 3750 24-POE Switch
- Cisco 2800 Router
- Comtech 570L Modem
- IPR-S600 DVB
- 4 ROCKET M5
- 4 ROCKET M2
- 1 Dell Laptop for Radius
- 2x RB1100
- some other accessories

Works 24hrs with no other power source, except for some days when it's cloudy or rainy.

Solar systems, for Wireless base station (RB433 powered)
Pannels 2x80Wc
Battery 12V 100~150A
With complete monitoring : panel and battery voltage, load and panel current, etc ... and Cacti integration.
http://www.lekermeur.net/lndkavr/, older system (2007) connected to the Routerboard via serial port,
http://blog.lekermeur.net/?p=2052, Arduino based system, with an ethernet interface.

We need to use these 3 fans for 6 hours every day.

Here first we get a total watt usage. Ptotal = 3 * 80 = 240Watts per hour

Than we multiply 240 with 6 hours. Pdaily = 240 * 6 = 1440 watts daily.

Let us say we are going to have complete sunshine 8 hours each day.

Now we divide 1440W with 8 hours, so we will get hourly power charge that we need Per hour

1440/ 8 = 180w.

So we need a 180 watt solar panel. But it is recommended to always choose a panel some bigger then we need. Because when solar panel charge the battery so it is wasting some power on charging too.

How much watt a battery can store?
It depends on battery size and how much Ah(Ampere hour) is a battery.

Example
If a battery is 100 Ah so it can store 1200Watts.

We know a battery is 12v and we have
100Ah. P = E * I = 12v * 100 = 1200W.



A 300 watt/hr 12 volt system coupled with 250 AmH system will store 3000 watts in 8 hours

It gets even better

A 300 watt panel system arranged in 24 volt configuration with 300 Amh will store in 8 hours about 7200 watts enough to power everthing in the house except A/C and water pump for 6 hours

Even better(i will be attempting this in my house over the winter)

a 48 Volt system hooked 1500 watts panels on 700 Amh battery bank will store 33600 watts allowing me to run EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE for 10 hours.

Respect to all who have tried This are 500w Mono-Si SPanels just to power up 24h 40w equipment in winter we may have to add +400w but still testing

this is chart of battery voltage during 24h (sunny day with few clouds) Solars in reality can give up max 80% so u always decrease performance about 20% -dust, temperature.. (index 0.8 )
On a cloudy day performance can decrease up to 90%
it simple like that
If u want 24h/7 solar system take the worst scenario - smallest day in year and put on top of it clouds and calculate

The battery and panel size both depends on the latitude. A small increase in the size of the solar panel system can result in substantial differences in the long term output and ROI (return on investment) of the system. I recently get it installed in our house by Mactec electrical- apprentice electrician Perth and it is working fine. It really save money.

Has any one have real working mikrotik on solar system that is tested all year long ?

We get a lot of sun per year but 2 mounts in year December and January really sucks.

Has any one have real working mikrotik on solar system that is tested all year long ?

We get a lot of sun per year but 2 mounts in year December and January really sucks.

Mine has been running for 2 years from solar. No issues at all.

Can u give me more info like your solar location
how many wats is ur solar panel ,how much Ah is your battery
and how much wats your equipment consume?

Tnx.

Can u give me more info like your solar location
how many wats is ur solar panel ,how much Ah is your battery
and how much wats your equipment consume?

Tnx.

Location is on the east coast of Australia. My solar panel is 60 watts, the battery is a 43aH Lifeline battery.
The gear (711UA-2HnD + Sierra Wireless USB modem) uses between 3-4 watts per hour.

Even when your neighborhood is frosty and cloudy, you may continue to use solar technology. It doesn't need to be like Florida throughout every season for so that it is a huge part of the energy cost savings goals. Some people will solar power will protest that they've become the greatest results in the most severe searching times.

Monitor amounts when acquiring solar energy panels for your home here. Once you compute what it really costs to install the solar panels where you live, you may find you will not be capable to recover your expenditure. You could wind up being extremely unpleasantly amazed if you hold out to determine if they will help you save money soon after your buy.

Maintaining your solar power system, like checking the inverter frequently, is a vital component of obtaining the most from it. You must visit a green lighting meaning all is in buy. Should it be blinking, or away from totally, you have to get in touch with a professional. Most proprietors do not possess the information to resolve most problems. Choose solar energy panels with a extended guarantee that features improvements and routine maintenance.

I have build a new charging Controller including an Ethernet Gateway for calculation SOC state of charge
the application is running on a windows machine wich put a screenshot of the application to an FTP Server,
so you can see all measured data from your browser (PC, iPad, iPhone etc)

here is the link

ftp://laderegler.ubr.at/Screenshot.jpg

juanguma3

Thanks for sharing the information link