Solar power suggestion

[kolo676]

Hi, I'm planning a new Node in a hill that I need solar power. It'll be in 5ghz and the options I've are: Nanostation5, Bullet5 or Litestation5, in all this options I need to add Gain with sectorial panels, the question is: what of those options have the less power consumption??
Reading the forum I realized that nano5 and bullet5 have the same power consumption (around real 400ma) but I didn't found the litestation5 power consumtion.
The calculation I was doing was the next:

2 nano5 = 2 x 12v x 0.4a = 9.6 A/h

9.6A/h x 24= 230.4A/Day

230.4 A/d / 4 Hours charching per day = 57.6 Watt Panel

If someone had this experiencie can tall me if my calculation are Ok or no, and what kind of battery (car battery or gel battery) suggest me, and what sice to keep out 7 days of Backup in the case that my solar system doesn't charge?

Thanks (From Argentina)

[luker]

Hi

I would look at it like this:

Each N5 is going to draw 0.4Ah each hour.

So for 24 hours you will want a battery capaicty of 9.6Ah for each N5.

A battery like this, a Gel one:
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=SB1699&CATID=18&form=CAT&SUBCATID=904

Car batterys will not last if heavily discharged which is likely to happen. Lead acid would be fine for shorter run times but higher Ah are hard to find and expensive. The Gel are also easier to maintain and probably cheper than open deep cycle batterys.

The 38Ah model listed above costs about $200 AUD at retail.

The 38Ah should power 1 x N5 for just under 4 days with no charging.

Use 2 in parallel for longer times or to run another N5.

Add one of these:
Solar Panel
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ZM9096&CATID=7&form=CAT&SUBCATID=920

and a:
Charging regulator
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=AA0348&keywords=solar+charger&form=KEYWORD
or a:
http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MP3722&CATID=7&form=CAT&SUBCATID=912

if cost is not an issue.

Should take around 12-15 hours to do a full charge of the battery, longer for more batteries.

Thats a about it :)

I hope this is of help to you. Not sure who Jaycar is in Argentina but I am sure you get the idea.

[rtkrh9]

thanks a zill for this ans i believe a lot of ppl will be interested in something similar for all ubnt equipment like

rocketm, nanobridge , ect

any help will be highly appreciated

[Black6spdz]

calculations are close but a bit off.. basically you need a panel/array sized to be able to supply the daily power usage of your equipment and recharge the batteries in the amount of sunlight "peak hours" you get each day in the winter if you need to operate all year. you also need to add an additional 20% for battery charge inefficiency and I'd like at least 20% error margin. it makes a big difference knowing what the actual average power consumption vs using the max in the specs... but for calculation example we'll go with yours. you specify 4 peak sun hours.. winter? your radios @ 4.8W x 2 = 9.6W = 24h = 230W/day * (20%(charge comp.) + 20%(error margin)) = 322W/day / 4 sun hours = 80.5W solar panel or equiv. Next you need to size your battery bank. You have to account for days where you may not get any sunlight at all. We'll make it an even 7 days, but more is always better... and its best to not use more than 80-85% of your batteries/day so it will prolong their life. 0.4a per device x 2 radios x 24h = 19.2Ah/day x 7d = 134Ah. Hope this helps.

[rhauf]

I've done the math and all, and finally settled on an arrangment which seems to work out quite well.

note, i use nanostations and nanobridges on my solar sites.

50 watts of solar, and one deep cycle battery (125AH) per device. this set up has taken me through over 6 days of rain without failing. seems to work nicely. note, i live in california, so there is a lot of good sun here. if you live further from the equator, you may want more watts of solar.

as for batterys, i use the big deep cycle marine batterys from the auto parts store (autozone here) they were the most amp hours for the money, by far. yes, they are hybrid battery's not true deep cycle, but they have been working well so far, and if you have enough of them so they dont cycle a ton everyday, they'll last a long time.

[Black6spdz]

I would say typical power consumption for these small devices is along the lines of 2-3 watts avg.