The new solar charge regulator connected into the system, and more radios connected as loads. With the new controller I can manage around 600W peak power from the solar panels. Right now the panels provide only a maximum of 230W, so there is room for improvement, and I have some panels available
Setting this revised system up took a few hours.
Radios connected now:
- IC-705 (running 6 - 80m with the new 30m "long wire" antenna).
- IC-7300 (running 4-6-10-(12)-15-(18)-20-40-80m with the dipole antenna)
- IC-703 (running 10 FM RX)
- FRG-100 (running 28200 Beacon RX)
- AR-8200 (running FT8 RX) will run continuously
- FT-8900 (running 70cm)
Total current consumption for all the above radios is about 2.7A, though not running all the time.
Main radios for use will be the IC-705 and the IC-7300 and the FT-8900 for now.
As the system has been running all evening, the batteries indicate about 85% capacity left. Let us see how much sunshine is needed to get the power back up to above 95% tomorrow.
The IC-703, the FRG-100 and the AR-8200 are very inefficient as stand-by receivers and should be replaced with less power consuming receivers. Some of it should probably be home made, especially the FT8 receiver and the 28200 beacon receiver. This will likely reduce the total power consumption of the system by almost 1A - this could then be used for other purposes, like a Raspberry Pi for running WSJT-X (FT8 monitoring).
In general, for general monitoring, the receivers should be really low power ones, as much as can be done
I will need to test a Raspberry Pi 2 to see if it runs WSJT-X smoothly, and how the current consumption is.
Now I will have to see how this works as an independent power supply. I expect no problems from now, until October or November, but the few winter months will likely provide too little power from the solar panels. We shall see when that time arrives.
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