Solar Power HOWTO

==Solar Power HOWTO== WORK IN PROGRESS

The purpose of this Wiki article is to document the process and materials required to build a Hisite (Base Station) that will operate autonomously using RouterBoard Hardware, without any connection to the Grid or Municipal Power Supply.

Some reasons why this may be needed:

1: There is no mains electricity supply where you are building your Hisite. Maybe this is because you are placing it on a mountain or hill in a remote area. 2: The the mains electricity is unreliable where you are putting the hisite and you dont have any automatic generator, or grid connected inverter or UPS 3: You have access to mains power, but find that solar power is often more stable for the RouterBoards, and you can get massive Uptimes and reduce issues. 4: You dont want to pay money to the landlord that is hosting your Hisite, and besides you are an environmentally energy efficient organisation.

DISCLAIMER

First I must point out that I am not an electrician or Solar Power "Expert". The contents of this article is the result of my experiences and lessons learned. I may not have calculated things fully / correctly, and may not have designed things exactly how they should be. THEREFORE you are reminded of this and that the use of this information is made entirely at your own risk. If you damage some equipment or yourself, or you find that this desgin doesnt cover the loads that you have, I can take no responsibility.

REMEMBER working with power and batteries and heights can be dangerous. Observe all industry standard health and safety rules.

CALL TO GURU'S

Can I request that others who have had successes with Solar Power Installations please edit / review this wiki? If you dont have time to make changes you can PM me in the forums and I will make the edits.

AIM

To power the following equipment with the use of Solar Power and NO Mains Power. The system must operate 24x7x365 with no downtime due to power.

Equipment to be powered: 1 x RB433 Routerboard 1 x R52H MiniPCI Radio Card

The system must be installed at the base of the mast and send power (NOT OVER POE) up the mast to the RouterBoard Mounted in an Outdoor Housing at the top of the Mast.

Mast is 30 Meters High.