Craig, My gut feeling is that your solar repeater is woefully under-powered. While I hold no malice against home-made power controllers, my own and somewhat limited experience leads me to put my trust in commercial, microprocessor-based solar charge controllers. I am currently (ouch- no pun intended!) using a SunWize STECA LCD charge controller at one hilltop site that has been active 24/7 for nearly four years.
The radio is a Motorola R1225 full-duplex UHF transceiver putting out about 35 watts. I have two 75-watt Siemens solar panels feeding two 12V 105AH SLA batteries in parallel, through the STECA charge controller. If the charge controller is to do its job properly, there must be no load connected directly to the battery. Almost every solar-powered system that I am aware of, that seems not to be working properly, has some or all of the load connected to the battery instead of to the charge controller. I am unfamiliar with a Morningstar controller, but I wonder if it provides load terminals...? Although I do not claim to be an expert on solar power myself, I do have the advantage of picking the minds of several solar-power experts, and I do follow the instructions packed with the solar power components I have purchased. First of all, a well-designed solar charge controller does NOT need a bank of resistors. The solar panel(s) are the load bank, and a properly-designed charge controller simply shunts excess power to be dissipated by the air-cooled panels themselves. This has been the design practice for decades, but newbies seem unaware of it. Second, a well-designed solar charge controller incorporates a low-voltage cutoff feature, to protect the batteries. There is no need to design such a feature to add, because it is inherent. However, if the capacity of the solar-power system was properly considered up-front, there would be no need for a low-voltage cutoff! In every deficient solar-power system I have seen, which list is very small, due to me not making a crusade to locate each and every such system, the findings were consistent: !. Solar panel capacity too small or improperly aimed or angled, and/or 2. Battery capacity too small, and/or 3. Inadequate charge controller (usually home-made) or improperly applied An important fact to keep in mind is that a solar-powered repeater should be over-designed by a "fudge factor" that may be many times what you think is "adequate." Solar panels deteriorate over time, and get impaired by dirt and bird poop. Batteries lose capacity over time and at low temperatures. Emergencies may increase the duty cycle of the repeater many-fold. Successive cloudy days may seriously reduce solar charging periods. A solar-powered repeater that is designed with no cognizance of these factors, and which is designed to minimize up-front costs, is doomed to early failure. EOS! 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY --- In [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> , "fxbuilder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hello All- > I've got a Mitrek uhf repeater built and on a hilltop with a cs8200 > controller, 45 watts of solar panel, morningstar 10amp charge > controller non lvd, and 89ah sealed gel cell battery. I'm in sunny > southern california. This is a low use gmrs outputing 15 watts > available for emergency use. I'm finding that my battery is draining > and not coming back up to full power. Am I under powered? what am I > doing wrong? Radio connected directly to the battery. > Craig
