back to 2025.06.28 Summer Field Day Antique Acres

6 solar and power:




We had a total of four lithium batteries at this year's event - my and Paul (KB0JIT)'s 100Ah, Al (KB0VGG)'s
400Ah, and Mark (N8TWO)'s gray (I think) 50Wh. Charge current was somewhat limited by how far the batteries
were spread apart in the room, with as much as 100ft of 10GA copper between the charger and the most distant
battery. I left most of the zip ties a little loose on the frames to reduce stress on the eyelets, one of which
had been damaged at the last event. (not sure how I'm going to repair that) All the panels were producing
pretty evenly though, except for one frame that had a bit of dirt/dust on the lower panel.

I checked the radios occasionally throughout the day and didn't see any EMI coming from the solar controller.
I was paying close attention to the spacing of wires on the controller-side of the filter, making sure they
stayed separated from lines going to the batteries, and the panels themselves (along with their transmission
lines) were kept far from the antennas. (and coax, where possible)

I moved the frames from the West side of the building over to the East side when they stopped producing on
Saturday evening, so they'd be ready to go come Sunday morning. Instead of moving the controller etc to the
other side of the room, I just ran the transmission line around the outside if the buiding from front to back,
about 120ft. At this time I noticed one of the panel combiners was damaged - one of the panel powerpoles had
pulled away from the box and was hanging on by it wires. The hot-melt glue on the connector looked like it had
just kind of shattered. I have six panel combiners so I swapped it out for one of the two spares, and will have
to repair that later. (as well as inspect the others for inadequate glue)

Around 9am the batteries were fully recharged and we were down to a single station with good sun, so I took
frames inside one at a time to disassemble until only one frame remained, which was brought in around 11:30.
The batteries remained well-charged throughout the event. The panels collected just over 900Wh of power in
total, thanks in part to the radios running almost continuously overnight. 40m was rolling all night long and
I didn't get off the air until around 3am, with Randy (KF0JPR) getting up around 6am to resume voice operations,
so the radios saw a decent amount of use throughout the event.

2025.06.28 11.07.56	2025.06.28 11.08.06	2025.06.28 11.08.08	2025.06.28 11.44.58	2025.06.28 11.45.08	2025.06.28 11.45.14
2025.06.28 11.45.22	2025.06.28 12.16.30	2025.06.28 12.16.32	2025.06.28 12.16.38	2025.06.28 12.16.42	2025.06.28 12.16.44
2025.06.28 13.42.56	2025.06.28 13.43.00	2025.06.28 13.43.06	2025.06.28 16.49.34	2025.06.28 16.49.42	2025.06.28 16.49.44
2025.06.28 16.49.48	2025.06.28 16.49.54	2025.06.28 17.09.26	2025.06.28 17.09.32	2025.06.28 17.09.40	2025.06.28 17.09.44
2025.06.28 17.09.48	2025.06.29 06.20.14	2025.06.29 06.20.30	2025.06.29 07.18.28	2025.06.29 07.18.36	2025.06.29 07.18.40
2025.06.29 07.18.44	2025.06.29 07.18.50	2025.06.29 10.50.14	panel combiner broke1	panel combiner broke2	Paul's LIFE battery, 234,242 Wh
solar combiner didn't get reset, 1785Wh	total solar 905Wh

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last updated 07/02/2025 at 10:31:18 by make_www_index.command version 2025.06.28.A