mram1500
Junior Member
No Jab -Just Fact
Posts: 67
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Post by mram1500 on Nov 18, 2018 15:06:29 GMT
Well, I got an Amazon gift card for my birthday so I started thinking. What practical item would be useful and long lasting.
A solar panel! I could use it for emergency power, camping and portable radio setups
I have a 20 watt panel but a 100 watt would be great.
Should be here in a week or so.
I'll detail my tryouts to let you know what it can do.
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Neil
New Member
Posts: 43 
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Post by Neil on Nov 20, 2018 21:49:56 GMT
Nice acquisition. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures with this.
Since you already have a unit it is likely you have done some tinkering with storing the energy when (not WHERE)the sun don't shine. I use sealed lead acid for such stuff (not solar though) since they are pretty cheap, last a long time, and aren't princesses with regard to charging/discharging. Any experience or thoughts?
Neil
P.S. I stopped having birthdays when I found out they make people old! Nonetheless, happy birth day Bob.
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Post by Admin on Dec 11, 2018 1:43:42 GMT
The solar panel arrived last week. The cables are terminated with industry standard connectors. At first I was simply going to cut off the connectors and use wire nuts.
On second consideration, I decided to leave the connectors in place and will purchase an extension cable with the mating connectors.
Given the current weather and need for the extension cable, I will wait and perform some testing when the cable arrives.
The panel appears to be well constructed. The output current should be close to 5 amps in full sunlight.
I have some gel cell batteries, which I'm told aren't the best choice for this application but I'll start out using them for testing.
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Post by End80 on Dec 11, 2018 6:49:21 GMT
What kind of panel you get?
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Post by Admin on Dec 11, 2018 18:01:43 GMT
Mighty Max from Amazon. 5.5 amp max, open circuit voltage 17 vdc.
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Post by End80 on Dec 11, 2018 20:40:14 GMT
Mighty Max from Amazon. 5.5 amp max, open circuit voltage 17 vdc. That's a polycrystalline solar panel. I went with the monocrystaline type panels (mine are made by Renogy). The differences are primarily in the way they are made. The original reason for my getting solar panels was for my boat and I had done a fair amount of research trying to determine which kind to get and ultimately went with monocrystaline, which generally are more efficient, not as dependent on direct sunlight to perform, and last a lot longer before deterioration begins to occur. These mono type are the most popular amongst those who live offgrid in RV's or live aboard in boats, mainly because in a constant use type situation the monocrystalines will outlast the polycrystalline type by years, and also because the mono's require less surface area than the poly's do... or in other words a 100w mono panel will generally be smaller in size than a poly, so you can fit more panels (thus power) into the same surface area.
Although the manufacturing time is longer and production cost is higher for monocrystaline, nowadays they really don't seem to cost that much more for the consumer, nevertheless, there are more of the polycrystalline type sold because their a lot more plentiful and manufactures can pump them out a lot faster and cheaper.
So next time around you might want to consider getting the monocrystaline type instead.
And don't get me wrong.. I'm not pretending to be an expert on the subject, I'm not, but the above factors is what led me to believe it was the way to go.
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Post by End80 on Dec 11, 2018 20:45:52 GMT
By the way.. I'm a little confused, as I just responded to the "Admin", which I see from the caption is HBR radio...
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Post by Admin on Dec 12, 2018 18:52:10 GMT
Yes, HBR was Jim Henry who recently passed away.
As I was previously the chairman and the forum admin, the admin position reverted back to me. Technically we don't have a chairman right now.
These things will be discussed at our TeamSpeak meeting this Saturday.
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Post by Admin on Dec 13, 2018 22:08:07 GMT
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