[Fourlanders] Questions about portable power and solar

[Ryan Kovacs]

I will tell you my experience and setup. I have 2 - 100 watt  (12volt)
panels on the roof that feed into a Bioenno solar charge controller
(SC-4830JUD). The controller is only for LiFePO batteries. The system is
completely independent of grid power. The controller feeds into a 40ah
Bioenno battery. This powers all my radios except one. Sometimes I am
running 3 radios, 12 hours for 3 or 4 days and never have an issue with
power.
I used to have a different type of controller for lead acid before I
changed to LiFePO and never had an issue with that either.

Ryan

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 4:57 PM Ted Wood <ted at k4k.pw> wrote:

> Fourlanders,
>
> Field Day has me thinking about batteries and solar. I've wanted to
> retrofit my shack out with solar power for a long time and I was
> thinking a good starting point would be powering just the radio "stuff"
> first, upgrading until eventually everything is running off of it. I
> have started off very small scale with a PWM charge controller for the
> battery with the thinking that I could run the controller off of my
> shack DC power supply until I was ready to make the switch to a single
> PV panel. In this way, I had hoped I could run off battery easily and
> have a fairly robust and seamless charging experience and battery backup
> solution for the shack. Unfortunately, it would seem I did not do enough
> homework. DC power supplies are not appropriate power sources for a PWM
> charge controller. According to many online forums, due to the
> controller expecting a current limited source such as a PV cell, (and
> the DC supply is expecting the inverse) you have a situation where
> there's no current limiting and the controller will draw whatever it
> can, potentially damaging either the controller or the power supply.
>
> Bearing this in mind, here's my goal. I'd like to have something that
> can take advantage of solar power, when it is available, to charge a
> bank of batteries but that can switch to charging via commercial power,
> by way of a DC supply like the one running my radio gear, either until I
> have panels installed or, once panels are installed, on a cloudy day. I
> know I can charge the gel cell battery just fine off a standard 12v
> supply but I'd like to use something that can float the battery instead
> of overcharging it and shortening it's lifespan (so something that can
> cut off the charging current when the battery reaches a voltage threshold).
>
> Ideally the setup would look something like this fully time, the battery
> acting almost like a giant uninterruptible power supply.
>
> Solar/Power Supply -> Battery bank -> Radio
>
> What sort of device am I looking for? Do you have any resources that
> might help me understand these topics more? How do you do it?
>
> --
> 73
> Ted
> K4KPW
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