I would use a 100 watt panel minimum. And a one month battery. 5watts * 24hours * 30 days = 3600 watt hour battery If you are running a 24 volt system then you need 3600/24=150 aH battery. If you are running a 12 volt system, you need a 300 aH battery.
You will pay about 30 cents per watt hour for a battery. So $1080 for the battery. You will pay about $5/watt for the panel, so $500 for the panel. Charge controllers are about $100 or less. If you build it this way it will always work. You can put in half the battery for half the price. But then you have only two weeks of insurance against bad weather. Never ever go below 10X the load for the panel, that will just barely cut it in the sunniest of climates. Even then you will probably have to put in a back up generator and you will be cycling the crap out of your batts causing them to only last a couple of years. If you want 99.999% reliability you have to use a panel 24X the size of the load (unless you have a tracking mount, then you can reduce that). I try to always use 20X panels and no less than a 2 week battery. But even then, a week or two of snow on the panels and gray skies every day can cause an outage. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Parsons" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'WISPA General List'" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:33 PM Subject: [WISPA] Remote Powered Access Pont > I'm looking into setting up a remote access point/repeater. > Power requirements are 5W. No access to grid power. > > I was curious what you guys use for this type of thing? > I figure I need a 30W solar panel, controller, battery and enclosure. > How much should I expect to pay for a setup? > Is there anything available off the shelf? > > Thanks for your help. > Scott > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/