Where is the digi located? (Latitude, Longitude, Local climate). How much activity is in the area. (What percent of the time will the transmitter be transmitting). (The obvious maximum is 50%). Cloud cover and minimum sun hours per day.
How many days would you like it to run in the worst case situation? Rain, Snow, Clouds for X number of days before the unit stops working.
How many days would you like to take in full sunshine (after the storm) before the battery is fully charged so that it is ready for the next storm?
I have multiple solar repeaters and digipeaters. Most are in the high desert area of the US. My criteria (was) a 15 day storm period with 6 days to fully recharge. I had most of my systems fail last winter twice. The first was on day 16 of near zero sun, and the next was after only 3 days of sun and was down for another 7 days.
I spent WAY to much time hauling frozen batteries and resetting locked OT+'s last winter! (all over 10,500 feet and using snow shoes...)
All sites now have low voltage cutoffs set MUCH higher, and have double the solar capacity. I also removed all linear regulators with switching supplies. Thus improving the standby with the same sized batteries.
I should now have about 20 days reserve and 3 days to fully charge. The reserve would be longer but the low voltage disconnect happens at a higher voltage thereby reducing my effective capacity.....VERY double edged knife.
Mark KC5EVE At 05:20 AM 7/16/2009, you wrote:
Hi FOlks, I am looking to set up a T2 5w o/p solar powered digi. The ham radio side I am fine with, but there seems to be conflicting information on the web about what I need from the solar side. Has anyone done this? Can you tell me what size panel and battery you used? Thanks Steve M0BPQ
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