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Author Topic: Solar charging system?  (Read 1220 times)

Offline Dennis Toth

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Solar charging system?
« on: July 08, 2022, 07:01:10 PM »
Any of the EE's out there know what it would take to get a solar charger to charge our batteries? I'm thinking this could be a field charger.

Best,    DennisT

Offline Motorman

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2022, 08:48:46 PM »
I looked into this and if I remember it wasn't practical as a field carry type of thing. The solar panels aren't strong enough and have to charge a marine battery over time then you tap into that with your charger.

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Offline John Rist

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2022, 07:28:43 AM »
If you have a permanent location it can work.  Such as flying field structure.  My son has such a rig on his lake home boat house to power his boat lift and security camera.  But a portable unit in a field support flight box isn't going to work.  A small gas powered generator would work.  For $500 bucks you can run a charger and a box fan.

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MUP6L1U?ascsubtag=[]st[p]cjsbxtuat00higmy6ygo35t9ahpn1dd1[t]w[r]google.com[d]D[z]m&tag=thestrategistsite-20

Lots of smaller cheaper units out there that would work.

PS My son's lake home boat house setup cost more than $500
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Offline William DeMauro

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2022, 10:46:22 AM »
Any of the EE's out there know what it would take to get a solar charger to charge our batteries? I'm thinking this could be a field charger.

Best,    DennisT
With the time and effort and expense to set one of those up, then couple it with the fact that it may not work very well, it is probably more economical to just buy more batteries and not charge at the field at all.
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Offline Ken Culbertson

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2022, 01:39:19 PM »
We have 2 AC outlets at our field that are on for contests.  Otherwise, it is a BYOB club. n~

Ken
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Offline Mike Morrow

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2022, 07:07:45 AM »
It definitely can work. We've had solar charging stations at our Kent County Aeromodelers field for more than 5 years (when I joined). Probably have at least 20 charging stations. The panels are on the roof over our pits all connected to several 12V marine batteries. Our facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/380866159235589/

Mike Morrow


Offline John Rist

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Offline Tim Wescott

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2022, 09:00:31 AM »
As said -- if this is going to stay on the field, then sure.  Put a 200W or so panel on the roof of the field shed, and few big deep-discharge batteries inside, then you can have a 12V (or 120V if you want) outlet on the side of the shed for whatever.  The reason it'll work is because the solar panel is the expensive part, and all the time that folks aren't there and there's daylight, it'll be charging.

Given my analysis in this post, and assuming, as always, that I got the math right, you could leave the solar panel at home and just put a deep-discharge battery in the trunk.  Get fancy and charge it off of your car through an isolator circuit (such things exist, although I can't remember the correct name -- it's an RV thing).  Or just charge it at home.

A 50A-hour battery (which is less than this one, but that's the very first one I looked at) should give you ten flights or so on a 64-ounce plane.

Working the math out in my head, a 200W panel would let you fly about once every 15 minutes if you have a 64-ounce plane and an efficient charger, an efficient charge controller on the panel, and it's really sunny (solar panels are rated for the power they deliver in full sun -- and cloudy days deliver way less light).  A deep-discharge battery about the size of your car battery costs around $100, the solar panel costs around $500, there's only so many hours in the day to fly, so -- do the math.
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Offline Howard Rush

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2022, 02:48:00 PM »
The problem I had when trying to charge at the field with a battery was that resistance of cables from the 12V battery to the charger dropped the voltage below min charger voltage.
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Offline Tim Wescott

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Re: Solar charging system?
« Reply #10 on: July 10, 2022, 05:08:47 PM »
The problem I had when trying to charge at the field with a battery was that resistance of cables from the 12V battery to the charger dropped the voltage below min charger voltage.

Oh, that's interesting.  Are you sure it was in the cables, or in the battery itself?  The actual low-voltage cutoff would be a function of the charger design -- you can always complain about those danged engineers at the battery charger factory.
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The problem with electric is that once you get the smoke generator and sound system installed, the plane is too heavy.


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