[MLB-WIRELESS] Solar Power - How much battery?

[Kim Hawtin]

gregsonm at aanet.com.au wrote:
> Question... how do you calculate the amount of battery a solar panel can
> charge?
> 
> I know some of you will say it depends on how much sun there is... which
> would be right. But I am looking for a basic calculation to make sure I
> have the maximum battery capacity possible.
> 
> For example, if I use an 80 watt solar panel, what would be the amount of
> battery amp hours I could charge?
> 
> All advice greatly appreciated... Mark

see if you can dig out the video that the guys in north island new zealand
at linux.conf.au in dunedin in 2006, on their Wireless Network.

anyhow, i asked them a lot of questions afterwards about this topic and
they designed their system to go three days without significant daylight.
so, that solar panel and battery array need to be three times the size
of what you need to deliver in a given day.
so power consumption in a day, needs to be delivered in 5-9 hours of daylight.
and then you need to be able to fully charge you batteries in say, 7 hours.
that 7 hours charge needs to be enough to run the AP for 3 x 24 hours.
that make sense? i don't know the area you are putting this in, but the
NZ guys AP was literally on the top of a mountain, that was a days hike up
and a days hike down. hopefully your AP is not quite that remote ;)

cheers,

kim
-- 
Operating Systems, Services and Operations
Information Technology Services, The University of Adelaide
kim.hawtin at adelaide.edu.au