Solar powered ham station

Not sure if this is right place?

I'm testing powering my station with batteries and a solar setup.

Anyone else doing this and wonder what your setup is like?

At the moment my station needs at least 25amps when txing.

I have lashed together two 100AH Lifepo4s in parallel which are just powering
the rigs for now. Charging the batteries for now is one Renogy 200watt solar suitecase.
In low light this just about provides 2.5amps to power receive but not top batteries.
In full sun I can get 12amps which easily charges the batteries and takes care of receive drain
of 2.5amps.

What do you think and any tips appreciated.

Sounds good.
Any noise from the panels at all.

Alan Pilot wrote:

Sounds good.
Any noise from the panels at all.

Appears not although not checked every frequency.
There is a 20amp PWM controller on the panels which surprises me there appears no real noise.

Been drizzling most of the morning no real sun but still getting an amp or so, basically it is just stopping
the batteries draining which is another surprise.
I have an mppt controller coming and I will series the two panels and see how that goes.

All sounds good there Mike and look forward to see how you get on with it all.  


I have recently been playing with some SLA's as a battery backup system but no solar panel stuff. Unfortunately even switching off the mains here still does not alleviate my noise floor seemingly most of it coming from immediate neighbours. (Although our washing machine is still an RFI monster on spin!!)

Is this for your home setup or perhaps field work?

Either way it'd be great to hear more especially if it raises interest or helps others.

Yep, I've run a solar/battery station ever since getting back on radio a few years back.  Currently, it's a 130Ah LiFePo charged via a EPEver 20A MPPT controller (Load pulled from the battery direct, not via the regulator, obviously) and 160w panel, driving an iCom 7610 and 9700 with no issue at all.

We do have a bit more sun there though.

Victor wrote:

All sounds good there Mike and look forward to see how you get on with it all.  


I have recently been playing with some SLA's as a battery backup system but no solar panel stuff. Unfortunately even switching off the mains here still does not alleviate my noise floor seemingly most of it coming from immediate neighbours. (Although our washing machine is still an RFI monster on spin!!)

Is this for your home setup or perhaps field work?

Either way it'd be great to hear more especially if it raises interest or helps others.

Hi Victor.

This is purely for the home station, been thinking about it for a while and it's now or never.

I wanted to experiment with solar but I'm not really a green person but it makes sense to lighten the leccy bill.
Most likely will not pay for itself but I'm learning some more about solar.

I still have hi noise but slightly less than normal on 30, 40 and 80 but the higher bands seem ok albeit I have not check every frequency.
Yesterday after work I changed the 200watt suitcase to series and now have a 20amp Renogy Rover mppt.
Have not done a real check of the bands but a quick check on FT8 frequencies seems ok.
See what happens when the sun comes out.

43CT016 wrote:

Yep, I've run a solar/battery station ever since getting back on radio a few years back.  Currently, it's a 130Ah LiFePo charged via a EPEver 20A MPPT controller (Load pulled from the battery direct, not via the regulator, obviously) and 160w panel, driving an iCom 7610 and 9700 with no issue at all.

We do have a bit more sun there though.

Sounds really good, do you know how long the battery lasts without charging?
My two 100ah in parallel report 80hours at 90% charge for just the 2.5amps that the IC7300/9700 pull on receive.

I put a Renogy Rover 20amp mppt inline yesterday after changing the 200watt suitcase panels to series.
Really poor light here yesterday afternoon,  contoller getting 38volts on the panels just about 0.5amp charging.
Will see how it goes but need more sun.

I will most likely add a few more panels, the solar suitcases are on sale here at Renogy, might nab two more
before the price goes up.

i like the sound that some one else using solar, my camper has 2 X120ah leisure batterys, linked up to two 120w pannels on the roof, with a solar controler, most days get a good charge, even when cloudy, but full sun keeps them fully topped up, bare in mind dont have the IC7300 as of yet so prob drain the lot when i fisrt get it lol......, but runs the radio, fridge,lights and very rare have to plug in for a fast charge,
Renogy Rover 20amp mppt is deff the way to go they seen to be the best, and the LiFepo`s are prob the best ive come across as of yet

peewee norfolk wrote:

i like the sound that some one else using solar, my camper has 2 X120ah leisure batterys, linked up to two 120w pannels on the roof, with a solar controler, most days get a good charge, even when cloudy, but full sun keeps them fully topped up, bare in mind dont have the IC7300 as of yet so prob drain the lot when i fisrt get it lol......, but runs the radio, fridge,lights and very rare have to plug in for a fast charge,
Renogy Rover 20amp mppt is deff the way to go they seen to be the best, and the LiFepo`s are prob the best ive come across as of yet

Thanks for the info, sounds good.
When I have the IC7300 and 9700 on the batteries, receive only, the battery bluetooth reports about 2amps.
So 7300 allow about an amp on receive, you will need max 22amps on TX.

Yesterday was a rotten cloudy rain sodden day but the Renogy Rover 20amp produced 20AH off 2 100watt suitcase panels in series.

That was a real surprise as this powered the two ICOMS on receive most of the day and put 3AH into each battery.

Ivy Mike wrote:

Sounds really good, do you know how long the battery lasts without charging?
My two 100ah in parallel report 80hours at 90% charge for just the 2.5amps that the IC7300/9700 pull on receive.

Never bothered to check, TBH.

I have never even seen a low voltage warning on either radio, even after a day of heavy use.

Plus, I have a 40A PSU under the desk if ever I needed it anyway.

Thank you for the reply.
I have now exchanged the two 100AH batteries for a single Renogy Core 200AH.
It's not bluetooth so I have a battery monitor sitting on top of it.

I feed the battery to my Rigrunner which will tell me if there is any voltage problems.

Have found on a cloudy day the 200watt panel will produce around 2.5amps so just about
keeps up with all the rigs on receive.

Now gone back to the two 100AH in parallel as they have bluetooth the 200AH had to have a battery moniter and that just added a load of extra wires.
Also now have two 200watt suitcases in series feeding a 60amp charge controller.
A good sunny day easily gets over 350watts, a cloudy day gets enough to power receive with sometimes
a tad to charge.

Hopefully this will do for now and if we don' get enough solar in the winter I have a 20amp charger
that I can switch in with a smart plug for the off peak over night.

I have found there is a hissy sort of crackle on 10metres and on various bands there is a similar
sweeping sort of sound that travels to and fro on the waterfall but does not really affect FT8.
It no doubt would be annoying on SSB but seeing as I'm nearly 100% digital I'm not to worried.

I will try some ferittes later to see if it can be eliminated.