Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
We love Morningstar 60mppt for lower end solar, ethernet ( no security ) complete configuration available and priced lower than most other stuff for a serious amount of solar. For bigger the 600Volt is available, for bigger than that the signature solar controllers will do about anything you want, even with lithium. They just released an _outdoor_ 14.5KW (heated!) battery for 4K. With that you can build a site that will handle about anything.. Licensed links, heated shelters.. etc... On 8/16/23 6:58 PM, dmmoff...@gmail.com wrote: That’s building strictly for a 20W load though. Building for a tiny load does make the costs easier. But if you wanted a second AP, bigger backhaul, or anything else you can’t do it without growing the whole power system proportionally. Steve was talking a 50W load today. The real high end hardware now is using a lot of signal processing either to reassemble useful data out of garbage or for beam steering, or both. So you end up needing 100-150W for an AP. You’d be hard pressed to find a licensed backhaul under 35W, and most of them are 50W+. We could say we won’t deploy that equipment….but building for a 20W load takes the choice away. A 20A 240v circuit is 4800W. Or a 20A 120V circuit is 2400W. Even 2400W would power almost any WISP deployment. Building solar to handle any load you might have is expensive, and building for only low power handcuffs you. You do your thing your way, no judgement. If it’s working for you then it’s good, but I can’t see myself going that direction. -Adam *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 5:01 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question I'm at about the same latitude as you. My experience is that having extra battery capacity is more helpful than oversizing the solar panels, so I'd probably go with Chuck's numbers for batteries if I was putting something together now, and solar panels are cheap now anyway, so figure 400 watts (if mounting space allows for it, which could be an issue if we're trying to fit it on a pole). A quick check on Amazon shows 100ah SLA batteries for $160, so 6 of those would give me 7200 watt hours, for just under $1k. At $1500 (which is mostly just adjusting battery and panel sizes from where I started at $1k), I'm right in line with Chuck's estimate, aside from the battery costs. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:33 PM wrote: I end up closer to Chuck’s estimate. In Southern or Central NY State I’m 2 degrees north of Salt Lake City. 42N What’s your latitude? *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:11 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, power supply), so that offsets it a bit. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:*Mathew Howard *Sent:*Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:*AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:*Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
Surprisingly, not a lot. 10-15% which in line with their summer production. Winter with snow, people were reporting production 20-25% higher and much higher when the panels are covered with snow behind and sunlight there were videos of 20% production when regular panels were zero. This was at sites with both panels types side by side... On 8/16/23 4:35 PM, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: I presume they are more expensive? Is the watts per square foot the same? -Original Message- From: Robert Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 3:00 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Or just get bifacials... The can do that and the incoming solar from the back side increases snowmelt 2x, as tested by youtubers last lear... I was on the fence but the videos were pretty convincing... The performace boost in winter is way more than summer... On 8/16/23 3:14 PM, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: We had a storm blow a set of panels over so they were pointed down. They were 10 feet off the ground and we were getting significant power from the sunlight reflected off the snow. If I was going to build another system that is super critical, and unaccessible in winter, I think I would mount a set of extra panels upside down over a white reflecting surface. -Original Message- From: Robert Andrews Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:56 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question When not buried in a historic snow load or positioned correctly so that the snow falls off the panels and a 200 foot cliff... On 8/16/23 12:46, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:* Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no
Re: [AFMUG] Forrest's Time Post
Two methods I didn't mention that this group might already be familiar with: 1) They still distribute time via telephone. Call 303-499-7111 to hear the WWV (colorado) broadcast or 808-335-4363 for WWVH (hawaii) 2) You can dial in with your dialup modem and get time codes. 300 baud up to 9600 baud. Beyond that they have a range of services, some of which are not on the website to distribute time and frequency to various other entities which need a NIST-traceable and/or highly accurate time system. Not sure how much detail you really want, but there are three main additional methods I'm aware of: 1) Two-way-satellite time and frequency transfer. Essentially they buy time on a commercial satellite to be able to do full duplex two way satellite communication. Because of the symmetric nature of the simultaneous two-way path they are able to cancel out any satellite delay. Lots more information at https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/two-way-satellite-time-and-frequency-transfer 2) Common view GPS. Essentially you measure the time you receive a certain part of the signal from a single GPS satellite at two different locations, and compare it to the time produced by the atomic clocks at that location. If the path to the GPS satellite is the same length at both sites because you picked a time that the GPS satellite was in that position, you can be pretty certain that any difference in time of arrival you measure between the sites is an inaccuracy of the atomic clocks at each site. This method doesn't depend on the accuracy of the GPS clocks on the satellites as you're just comparing time of arrival of the signal and not decoding GPS time. Of course, the devil is in the details here as there is often propagation delay differences, and you need very precise satellite orbital data to make this work. Oh, high accuracy GPS satellite orbit data is also available from NIST. See https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-services/common-view-gnss-time-transfer . Apparently they're also experimenting with comparing the phase of received GPS signals as well to get even more accuracy. 3) They also do experimental fiber-based time and frequency transfer. Doesn't take much imagination about how this works, other than to say that apparently you have to take into account the fact that light propogates down different fibers at different speeds (even in the same bundle). 4) If you need nist-traceable time at your site they also sell a service where they drop a rack of equipment in your site and manage it. You get a highly-accurate frequency and time standard that is NIST traceable with all of the reports to prove it, from NIST. Think all of the atomic clocks you need, along with NIST scientists handling the time transfer to that rack. -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
That’s building strictly for a 20W load though. Building for a tiny load does make the costs easier. But if you wanted a second AP, bigger backhaul, or anything else you can’t do it without growing the whole power system proportionally. Steve was talking a 50W load today. The real high end hardware now is using a lot of signal processing either to reassemble useful data out of garbage or for beam steering, or both. So you end up needing 100-150W for an AP. You’d be hard pressed to find a licensed backhaul under 35W, and most of them are 50W+. We could say we won’t deploy that equipment….but building for a 20W load takes the choice away. A 20A 240v circuit is 4800W. Or a 20A 120V circuit is 2400W. Even 2400W would power almost any WISP deployment. Building solar to handle any load you might have is expensive, and building for only low power handcuffs you. You do your thing your way, no judgement. If it’s working for you then it’s good, but I can’t see myself going that direction. -Adam From: AF On Behalf Of Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 5:01 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question I'm at about the same latitude as you. My experience is that having extra battery capacity is more helpful than oversizing the solar panels, so I'd probably go with Chuck's numbers for batteries if I was putting something together now, and solar panels are cheap now anyway, so figure 400 watts (if mounting space allows for it, which could be an issue if we're trying to fit it on a pole). A quick check on Amazon shows 100ah SLA batteries for $160, so 6 of those would give me 7200 watt hours, for just under $1k. At $1500 (which is mostly just adjusting battery and panel sizes from where I started at $1k), I'm right in line with Chuck's estimate, aside from the battery costs. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:33 PM mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> > wrote: I end up closer to Chuck’s estimate. In Southern or Central NY State I’m 2 degrees north of Salt Lake City. 42N What’s your latitude? From: AF mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:11 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, power supply), so that offsets it a bit. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. From: Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> > wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
I set up a CO2 powered deicing system once. It was kinda successful. My business partner published pictures of it and we instantly had BLM cops saying we were dumping antifreeze. Yes we were but it was propylene glycol. They didn’t care. I told them that their own BLM aircraft use this to deice at airports and while airborne. They didn’t care. I fully expected it once I found he had posted the photos. He loved attention. From: Robert Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 3:09 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question We are at 39 _but_ the snowfall this winter was epic. Rivaling Chucks... We aren't on tippytops but with high panel angles and decent breaks in the coverage we only had to clear panels out a few times with the tracked ranger... Still got stuck a few times requiring one rescue aid We did have to clear out the area beneath the panels like five times.. but shaping the gap encouraged scouring that minimized visits. only one site out of 6 required generator service for one day. Way better than 16 when we ran gennies at 3 sites for 1.5 months on and off.. On 8/16/23 3:30 PM, dmmoff...@gmail.com wrote: I end up closer to Chuck’s estimate. In Southern or Central NY State I’m 2 degrees north of Salt Lake City. 42N What’s your latitude? From: AF mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com On Behalf Of Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:11 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group mailto:af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, power supply), so that offsets it a bit. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. From: Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
I presume they are more expensive? Is the watts per square foot the same? -Original Message- From: Robert Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 3:00 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Or just get bifacials... The can do that and the incoming solar from the back side increases snowmelt 2x, as tested by youtubers last lear... I was on the fence but the videos were pretty convincing... The performace boost in winter is way more than summer... On 8/16/23 3:14 PM, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: We had a storm blow a set of panels over so they were pointed down. They were 10 feet off the ground and we were getting significant power from the sunlight reflected off the snow. If I was going to build another system that is super critical, and unaccessible in winter, I think I would mount a set of extra panels upside down over a white reflecting surface. -Original Message- From: Robert Andrews Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:56 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question When not buried in a historic snow load or positioned correctly so that the snow falls off the panels and a 200 foot cliff... On 8/16/23 12:46, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:* Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain them and the benefit
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
We are at 39 _but_ the snowfall this winter was epic. Rivaling Chucks... We aren't on tippytops but with high panel angles and decent breaks in the coverage we only had to clear panels out a few times with the tracked ranger... Still got stuck a few times requiring one rescue aid We did have to clear out the area beneath the panels like five times.. but shaping the gap encouraged scouring that minimized visits. only one site out of 6 required generator service for one day. Way better than 16 when we ran gennies at 3 sites for 1.5 months on and off.. On 8/16/23 3:30 PM, dmmoff...@gmail.com wrote: I end up closer to Chuck’s estimate. In Southern or Central NY State I’m 2 degrees north of Salt Lake City. 42N What’s your latitude? *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:11 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, power supply), so that offsets it a bit. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:*Mathew Howard *Sent:*Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:*AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:*Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam *From:*AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
I'm at about the same latitude as you. My experience is that having extra battery capacity is more helpful than oversizing the solar panels, so I'd probably go with Chuck's numbers for batteries if I was putting something together now, and solar panels are cheap now anyway, so figure 400 watts (if mounting space allows for it, which could be an issue if we're trying to fit it on a pole). A quick check on Amazon shows 100ah SLA batteries for $160, so 6 of those would give me 7200 watt hours, for just under $1k. At $1500 (which is mostly just adjusting battery and panel sizes from where I started at $1k), I'm right in line with Chuck's estimate, aside from the battery costs. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 3:33 PM wrote: > I end up closer to Chuck’s estimate. In Southern or Central NY State I’m > 2 degrees north of Salt Lake City. 42N > > What’s your latitude? > > > > *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Mathew Howard > *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:11 PM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site > like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load > is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had > some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using > cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's > gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can > be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 > when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts > that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, > power supply), so that offsets it a bit. > > > > On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF > wrote: > > Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top > location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed > me: > > > > Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. > > 2 weeks of battery autonomy. > > 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts > > Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. > > > > $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top > of Utah mountains. > > > > > > > > *From:* Mathew Howard > > *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM > > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can > be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put > together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. > > > > On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: > > I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be > cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to > design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our > latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those > months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to > ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it > takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the > winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. > > > > Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain > what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. > > NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and > let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up > the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or > have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service > they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A > (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to > 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is > way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. > > > > My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, > but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable > company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today > you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let > you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying > I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off > grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes > just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all > fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. > > > > -Adam > > > > > > *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones > *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > we have a
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
Or just get bifacials... The can do that and the incoming solar from the back side increases snowmelt 2x, as tested by youtubers last lear... I was on the fence but the videos were pretty convincing... The performace boost in winter is way more than summer... On 8/16/23 3:14 PM, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: We had a storm blow a set of panels over so they were pointed down. They were 10 feet off the ground and we were getting significant power from the sunlight reflected off the snow. If I was going to build another system that is super critical, and unaccessible in winter, I think I would mount a set of extra panels upside down over a white reflecting surface. -Original Message- From: Robert Andrews Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:56 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question When not buried in a historic snow load or positioned correctly so that the snow falls off the panels and a 200 foot cliff... On 8/16/23 12:46, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:* Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster wrote: How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than the 48 volts? If you
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
I end up closer to Chuck’s estimate. In Southern or Central NY State I’m 2 degrees north of Salt Lake City. 42N What’s your latitude? From: AF On Behalf Of Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:11 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, power supply), so that offsets it a bit. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. From: Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> > wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam From: AF mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Steve Jones Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster mailto:i...@wirelessmapping.com> > wrote: How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than the 48 volts? If you have 4
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
We had a storm blow a set of panels over so they were pointed down. They were 10 feet off the ground and we were getting significant power from the sunlight reflected off the snow. If I was going to build another system that is super critical, and unaccessible in winter, I think I would mount a set of extra panels upside down over a white reflecting surface. -Original Message- From: Robert Andrews Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:56 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question When not buried in a historic snow load or positioned correctly so that the snow falls off the panels and a 200 foot cliff... On 8/16/23 12:46, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:* Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster wrote: How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than the 48 volts? If you have 4 batteries and only need 48 volts then wire them in series and not have to deal with the converter. Thank you, Brian Webster *From:*AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] *On Behalf Of
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
Yeah, that's what I'd do in a difficult to access location. I did a site like that here (Wisconsin) with 200 watts of panel (I think the actual load is around 15 watts, so a bit more than 10x), and ~4kwh of battery. It had some issues in January a couple years, but I attributed that more to using cheap flooded deep cycles, rather than not enough capacity. With AGMs, it's gotten through the last couple of winters without issues. 4kwh of AGMs can be had for around $800, last I checked. Probably looking at closer to $1500 when you add in enclosures and mounts, but some of that is replacing parts that are needed with AC power anyway (smaller enclosure, backup batteries, power supply), so that offsets it a bit. On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 2:50 PM Chuck McCown via AF wrote: > Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top > location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed > me: > > Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. > 2 weeks of battery autonomy. > 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts > Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. > > $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top > of Utah mountains. > > > > *From:* Mathew Howard > *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can > be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put > together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. > > On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: > >> I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be >> cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to >> design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our >> latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those >> months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to >> ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it >> takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the >> winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. >> >> >> >> Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain >> what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. >> >> NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and >> let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up >> the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or >> have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service >> they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A >> (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to >> 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is >> way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. >> >> >> >> My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since >> then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the >> cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you >> today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d >> let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just >> saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when >> they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, >> or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. >> Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to >> work out. >> >> >> >> -Adam >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones >> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM >> *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group >> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question >> >> >> >> we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own >> poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the >> elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. >> Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough >> battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, >> then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying >> for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per >> customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole >> >> >> >> >> >> On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster >> wrote: >> >> How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other >> than the 48 volts? If you have 4 batteries and only need 48 volts then wire >> them in series and not have to deal with the converter. >> >> >> >> Thank you, >> >> Brian Webster >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] *On Behalf Of * >> dmmoff...@gmail.com >> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:59 AM >> *To:*
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
When not buried in a historic snow load or positioned correctly so that the snow falls off the panels and a 200 foot cliff... On 8/16/23 12:46, Chuck McCown via AF wrote: Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. *From:* Mathew Howard *Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster wrote: How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than the 48 volts? If you have 4 batteries and only need 48 volts then wire them in series and not have to deal with the converter. Thank you, Brian Webster *From:*AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *dmmoff...@gmail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:59 AM *To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question *You’re around C/30 which should be on the high end /of capacity/. Lower load usually means a little extra capacity out of the battery. I realized that sentence might have been ambiguous. *From:* dmmoff...@gmail.com *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:56 AM
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
Using my historical rules of thumb for off grid, snowed in mountain top location for a 20 watt load I would do the following that has never failed me: Load X 20 so 400 watts of panel. So less than $200 these days. 2 weeks of battery autonomy. 20 x 24 x 14= 6720 watt hours. $2K of batts Plus enclosures, mounts, charge controllers. $2500 and it will never go down in the winter. At my Utah latitude on top of Utah mountains. From: Mathew Howard Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 1:07 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. -Adam From: AF On Behalf Of Steve Jones Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster wrote: How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than the 48 volts? If you have 4 batteries and only need 48 volts then wire them in series and not have to deal with the converter. Thank you, Brian Webster From: AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] On Behalf Of dmmoff...@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:59 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question *You’re around C/30 which should be on the high end of capacity. Lower load usually means a little extra capacity out of the battery. I realized that sentence might have been ambiguous. From: dmmoff...@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:56 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: RE: [AFMUG] battery nerd question You can do the whole thing in Watts. 12V * 150ah = 1800 Watt-hours 1800Wh / 50W = 36 hours If they’re telling me 95% efficiency, I’d assume 50W out needs 53W in (50 / 0.95). There’s usually an efficiency curve for the device based on load and temperature so it wouldn’t be 95% in all circumstances. Your system should be drawing less than 5A off the battery, and if your multimeter has a 10A fuse like most do, then you could put the meter in line and actually measure the amperage
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
It depends on how much stuff you're trying to run. A minimal micropop can be done with less than 20 watts of load (single AP and backhaul). I can put together a solar setup for around $1000 that will power that. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 12:50 PM wrote: > I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be > cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to > design around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our > latitude we only get a few hours of average production per day during those > months. And obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to > ride through that on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it > takes a silly amount of panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the > winter. More than you’d ever be allowed to put on a utility pole. > > > > Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain > what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. > > NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and > let us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up > the pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or > have an outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service > they’ll let you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A > (if they’d allow it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to > 4800 Watts (240x20) so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is > way cheaper than a 100A service entrance cable. > > > > My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, > but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable > company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today > you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let > you do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying > I’ve run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off > grid, or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes > just for the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all > fine reasons, but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. > > > > -Adam > > > > > > *From:* AF *On Behalf Of *Steve Jones > *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM > *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our own > poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they decommissioned the > elevator and theres no real options for the customers in some of the areas. > Im just trying to get to something we can get solar power with enough > battery to last through overcast. So Im calculating per battery runtimes, > then will look at number of batteries we would need to survive vs paying > for a ROW meter vs losing the customers. Just have to get to the cost per > customer to retain them and the benefit gained per pole > > > > > > On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster > wrote: > > How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than > the 48 volts? If you have 4 batteries and only need 48 volts then wire them > in series and not have to deal with the converter. > > > > Thank you, > > Brian Webster > > > > > > *From:* AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] *On Behalf Of * > dmmoff...@gmail.com > *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:59 AM > *To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > *You’re around C/30 which should be on the high end *of capacity*. > > Lower load usually means a little extra capacity out of the battery. I > realized that sentence might have been ambiguous. > > > > > > *From:* dmmoff...@gmail.com > *Sent:* Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:56 AM > *To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' > *Subject:* RE: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > You can do the whole thing in Watts. > > > > 12V * 150ah = 1800 Watt-hours > > 1800Wh / 50W = 36 hours > > > > If they’re telling me 95% efficiency, I’d assume 50W out needs 53W in (50 > / 0.95). > > There’s usually an efficiency curve for the device based on load and > temperature so it wouldn’t be 95% in all circumstances. Your system should > be drawing less than 5A off the battery, and if your multimeter has a 10A > fuse like most do, then you could put the meter in line and actually > measure the amperage before and after the converter. Then you’d know for > sure. > > > > And the battery’s total capacity will have a curve based on C-rate so > there’s some variability there too. Usually it lasts longer when you’re > drawing lower amperage. You’re around C/30 which should be on the high > end. > > > > Age and maintenance of the battery affect runtime as well. If I want 6 > hours of runtime then I plan Ah for 12 hours runtime. When my batteries are > halfway toasted I’m still getting useful life out of
Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question
Definitely worth asking about. They have done unmetered service here in the past for CATV amps, but I think NYSEG told us they aren't doing any new ones. -Original Message- From: AF On Behalf Of Chris Fabien Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:52 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question The term that got us cheap power was "unmetered CATV power supply". They allow connection of a fixed capacity power supply unit with no meter, just a small disconnect and drop a 120V 10AWG service and bill us based on half of the power supply's nameplate capacity. On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 3:45 PM Chuck McCown via AF wrote: > > Some places have what is called a “street light tariff” that is about as low > as you can get. > > > > From: dmmoff...@gmail.com > Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:38 AM > To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > I can save you the suspense. If you have access to electric that’ll be > cheaper than solar. The problem is the need to run 24/7. You have to design > around the December-January months. I’m in NY State, and at our latitude we > only get a few hours of average production per day during those months. And > obviously if it’s snowing for a week you need to be able to ride through that > on mostly battery power. Even with a modest load it takes a silly amount of > panels and batteries to stay up 24/7 in the winter. More than you’d ever be > allowed to put on a utility pole. > > > > Talk to your electric co about the smallest service you can get. Explain > what you’re trying to do and that your max load is very low. > > NYSEG normally doesn’t do less than 100A, but they made an exception and let > us do 60A. You need a meter can, a service rated panel, a conduit up the > pole and a weatherhead. Then you either have an outdoor outlet, or have an > outlet inside your enclosure. You’ll want the smallest service they’ll let > you do because of the wire size on the service cable. A 20A (if they’d allow > it) would only need a 12/3 with ground, and that’s up to 4800 Watts (240x20) > so it’s still more than you’d ever need. A 12/3 is way cheaper than a 100A > service entrance cable. > > > > My figure is 8 years old, and obviously there’s been inflation since then, > but I went to the same contractor who does electric installs for the cable > company and they quoted me about $1000. Even if it’s 3x that for you today > you’d still never beat that with a solar installation even if they’d let you > do it. And I’m not some knee-jerk anti-solar lunatic, I’m just saying I’ve > run the numbers and it doesn’t add up. People do it when they’re off grid, > or when the electric service is unreliable in the area, or sometimes just for > the PR/marketing power of being “solar powered”. Those are all fine reasons, > but doing it for cost savings isn’t going to work out. > > > > -Adam > > > > > > From: AF On Behalf Of Steve Jones > Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 10:27 AM > To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > we have a dozen or so, but are looking at pole mount micropops (our > own poles). We are losing a grain elevator site because they > decommissioned the elevator and theres no real options for the > customers in some of the areas. Im just trying to get to something we > can get solar power with enough battery to last through overcast. So > Im calculating per battery runtimes, then will look at number of > batteries we would need to survive vs paying for a ROW meter vs losing > the customers. Just have to get to the cost per customer to retain > them and the benefit gained per pole > > > > > > On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 8:53 AM Brian Webster > wrote: > > How many of the batteries do you have? Do you need any voltages other than > the 48 volts? If you have 4 batteries and only need 48 volts then wire them > in series and not have to deal with the converter. > > > > Thank you, > > Brian Webster > > > > > > From: AF [mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com] On Behalf Of > dmmoff...@gmail.com > Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:59 AM > To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > *You’re around C/30 which should be on the high end of capacity. > > Lower load usually means a little extra capacity out of the battery. I > realized that sentence might have been ambiguous. > > > > > > From: dmmoff...@gmail.com > Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 6:56 AM > To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' > Subject: RE: [AFMUG] battery nerd question > > > > You can do the whole thing in Watts. > > > > 12V * 150ah = 1800 Watt-hours > > 1800Wh / 50W = 36 hours > > > > If they’re telling me 95% efficiency, I’d assume 50W out needs 53W in (50 / > 0.95). > > There’s usually an efficiency curve for the device based on load and > temperature so it wouldn’t be 95% in all circumstances. Your
Re: [AFMUG] Forrest's Time Post
Like to know more about “other esoteric methods” From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 7:40 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: [AFMUG] Forrest's Time Post Forrest posted this to the NANOG mailing list. It was pretty good, so I copied it here. --- I've responded in bits and pieces to this thread and haven't done an excellent job expressing my overall opinion. This is probably because my initial goal was to point out that GPS-transmitted time is no less subject to being attacked than your garden variety NTP-transmitted time. Since this thread has evolved, I'd like to describe my overall position to be a bit clearer. To start, we need a somewhat simplified version of how UTC is created so I can refer to it later: Across the globe, approximately 85 research and standards institutions run a set of freestanding atomic clocks that contribute to UTC. The number of atomic clocks across all these institutions totals around 450. Each institution also produces a version of UTC based on its own set of atomic clocks. In the international timekeeping world, this is designated as UTC(Laboratory), where Laboratory is replaced with the abbreviation for the lab producing that version of UTC. So UTC(NIST) is the version that NIST produces at Boulder, Colorado, NICT produces UTC(NICT) in Tokyo, and so on. Because no clock is perfectly accurate, all of these versions of UTC drift in relation to each other, and you could have significant differences in time between different labs. As a result, there has to be a way to synchronize them. Each month, the standards organization BIPM collects relative time measurements and other statistics from each institution described above. This data is then used to determine the actual value of UTC. BIPM then produces a report detailing each organization's difference from the correct representation of UTC. Each institution uses this data to adjust its UTC representation, and the cycle repeats the next month. In this way, all of the representations of UTC end up being pretty close to each other. The document BIPM produces is titled "Circular T." The most recent version indicates that most of the significant standards institutions maintain a UTC version that differs by less than 10ns from the official version of UTC. Note that 10ns is far more accurate than we need for NTP, so most of the UTC representations can be considered identical as far as this discussion goes. Still, it is essential to realize that UTC(NIST) is generated separately from UTC(USNO) or other UTC implementations. For example, a UTC(NIST) failure should not cause UTC(USNO) to fail as they utilize separate hardware and systems. Each of these versions of UTC is also disseminated in various ways. UTC(NIST) goes out via the "WWV" radio stations, NTP, and other esoteric methods. GPS primarily distributes UTC(USNO), which is also available directly via NTP. UTC(SU) is the timescale for GLONASS. And so on. So, back to NTP and the accuracy required: Most end users (people running everyday web applications or streaming video or similar) don't need precisely synchronized time. The most sensitive application I'm aware of in this space is likely TOTP, which often needs time on the server and time on the client (or hardware key) within 90 seconds of each other. In addition, having NTP time fail usually isn't the end of the world for these users. The best way to synchronize their computers (including desktop and server systems) to UTC is to point their computer time synchronization service (whatever that is) at pool.ntp.org, time.windows.com, their ISP's time server, or similar. Or, with modern OS'es, you can leave the time configured to whatever server the OS manufacturer preconfigured. As an aside, one should note that historically windows ticked at 15ms or so, so trying to synchronize most windows closer than 15ms was futile. On the other hand, large ISPs or other service providers (including content providers) see real benefits to having systems synchronized to fractions of seconds of UTC. Comparing logs and traces becomes much easier when you know that something logged at 10:02:23.1 on one device came before something logged at 10:02:23.5 on another. Various server-to-server protocols and software implementations need time to be synchronized to sub-second intervals since they rely on timestamps to determine the latest copy of data, and so on. In addition, as an ISP, you'll often provide time services to downstream customers who demand more accuracy and reliability than is strictly necessary. As a result, one wants to ensure that all time servers are synchronized within some reasonable standard of accuracy. Within 100ms is acceptable for most applications but a goal of under 50ms is better. If you have local GPS receivers, times down to around 1ms is achievable with careful
[AFMUG] Forrest's Time Post
Forrest posted this to the NANOG mailing list. It was pretty good, so I copied it here. --- I've responded in bits and pieces to this thread and haven't done an excellent job expressing my overall opinion. This is probably because my initial goal was to point out that GPS-transmitted time is no less subject to being attacked than your garden variety NTP-transmitted time. Since this thread has evolved, I'd like to describe my overall position to be a bit clearer. To start, we need a somewhat simplified version of how UTC is created so I can refer to it later: Across the globe, approximately 85 research and standards institutions run a set of freestanding atomic clocks that contribute to UTC. The number of atomic clocks across all these institutions totals around 450. Each institution also produces a version of UTC based on its own set of atomic clocks. In the international timekeeping world, this is designated as UTC(Laboratory), where Laboratory is replaced with the abbreviation for the lab producing that version of UTC. So UTC(NIST) is the version that NIST produces at Boulder, Colorado, NICT produces UTC(NICT) in Tokyo, and so on. Because no clock is perfectly accurate, all of these versions of UTC drift in relation to each other, and you could have significant differences in time between different labs. As a result, there has to be a way to synchronize them. Each month, the standards organization BIPM collects relative time measurements and other statistics from each institution described above. This data is then used to determine the actual value of UTC. BIPM then produces a report detailing each organization's difference from the correct representation of UTC. Each institution uses this data to adjust its UTC representation, and the cycle repeats the next month. In this way, all of the representations of UTC end up being pretty close to each other. The document BIPM produces is titled "Circular T." The most recent version indicates that most of the significant standards institutions maintain a UTC version that differs by less than 10ns from the official version of UTC. Note that 10ns is far more accurate than we need for NTP, so most of the UTC representations can be considered identical as far as this discussion goes. Still, it is essential to realize that UTC(NIST) is generated separately from UTC(USNO) or other UTC implementations. For example, a UTC(NIST) failure should not cause UTC(USNO) to fail as they utilize separate hardware and systems. Each of these versions of UTC is also disseminated in various ways. UTC(NIST) goes out via the "WWV" radio stations, NTP, and other esoteric methods. GPS primarily distributes UTC(USNO), which is also available directly via NTP. UTC(SU) is the timescale for GLONASS. And so on. So, back to NTP and the accuracy required: Most end users (people running everyday web applications or streaming video or similar) don't need precisely synchronized time. The most sensitive application I'm aware of in this space is likely TOTP, which often needs time on the server and time on the client (or hardware key) within 90 seconds of each other. In addition, having NTP time fail usually isn't the end of the world for these users. The best way to synchronize their computers (including desktop and server systems) to UTC is to point their computer time synchronization service (whatever that is) at pool.ntp.org, time.windows.com, their ISP's time server, or similar. Or, with modern OS'es, you can leave the time configured to whatever server the OS manufacturer preconfigured. As an aside, one should note that historically windows ticked at 15ms or so, so trying to synchronize most windows closer than 15ms was futile. On the other hand, large ISPs or other service providers (including content providers) see real benefits to having systems synchronized to fractions of seconds of UTC. Comparing logs and traces becomes much easier when you know that something logged at 10:02:23.1 on one device came before something logged at 10:02:23.5 on another. Various server-to-server protocols and software implementations need time to be synchronized to sub-second intervals since they rely on timestamps to determine the latest copy of data, and so on. In addition, as an ISP, you'll often provide time services to downstream customers who demand more accuracy and reliability than is strictly necessary. As a result, one wants to ensure that all time servers are synchronized within some reasonable standard of accuracy. Within 100ms is acceptable for most applications but a goal of under 50ms is better. If you have local GPS receivers, times down to around 1ms is achievable with careful design. Beyond that, you're chasing unnecessary accuracy. Note that loss of precision is somewhat cumulative here - running a time server synchronized to within 100ms will ensure that no client can be synchronized to better than
