August 12, 20242 yr Hi all, I have very limited knowledge of solar and would really appreciate advice as to components and where to source them. I have a local IT business and have been asked to install network on a farm. Some of the points are remote with no mains power, so need to be solar. I really didn't think it would be an issue as small panels/batteries/controllers now seem to be commonly included with cameras and lights. However.... Power needed is max around 20W with, say, a 3 day reserve. The units I use need between 12 and 30V but, as they can become unstable at the lower end, I like to use around 18 to 24V which could either come from 2 off 12V batteries or a DC/DC boost. Ideally, I'd like to obtain a complete package of panel, mountings, box, charge controller and battery. Thanks for any help, Adam
August 13, 20242 yr 10 hours ago, AdLew said: Hi all, I have very limited knowledge of solar and would really appreciate advice as to components and where to source them. I have a local IT business and have been asked to install network on a farm. Some of the points are remote with no mains power, so need to be solar. I really didn't think it would be an issue as small panels/batteries/controllers now seem to be commonly included with cameras and lights. However.... Power needed is max around 20W with, say, a 3 day reserve. The units I use need between 12 and 30V but, as they can become unstable at the lower end, I like to use around 18 to 24V which could either come from 2 off 12V batteries or a DC/DC boost. Ideally, I'd like to obtain a complete package of panel, mountings, box, charge controller and battery. Thanks for any help, Adam A 3 day reserve would mean some battery power of 1440Wh. If one takes the recharge from PV one could get a system using 2x 12V 50 Ah lithium batteries. Even with low irradiance per day the size of the panel will be the main variable. A panel of 425W should take care of some of the worst 3 day rain/heavy cloud I guess. It seems like a package will have to be made up to suit the application. I would use a good MPPT instead of cheaper solar charge controller and prefer one with blue tooth connectivity.
September 14, 20241 yr Please Be warned it happened on my hobby system. If you use a cheap 12/24v charge controller, the V out gets determined by the battery connected to the controller and the default output V is 24V. That means if you run a 12v battery with a 12v load and the battery gets disconnected, the controller output V will default to 24v. And then the magic smoke comes out of the 12v device which now gets 24v and goes poof. Eish I don't know if this happens to all 12/24v controllers. Edited September 14, 20241 yr by Vaal
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