Question is I would like to make this able to be powered by solar for emergency situation and am looking at solar kits but I don’t know enough about power to know what is adequate. Could anyone tell me if this would power it in a realistic useable way? http://www.ctsolar.com/16ahpelicancaselithiumpowercenterwith60wflexibleultralightsolarpanel-1.aspx It is labeled as
32AH Pelican Case Lithium Power Center with 45W Flexible Ultralight Solar Panel
This company called CT Solar makes http://www.ctsolar.com/amateurradiopackages.aspx labeled as amateur radio packages but I’m guessing that different radios would need different power. Any help would be much appreciated.
Ok - Let’s look at the parts independently here. I am going to assume you plan to run the radio directly from the solar source.
So first the radio: Wouxun kg-uv920p-a, it says in the manual it requires ~14VDC to run normally. Anything under 11.5 VDC it will shut down to protect a battery. What it does not list, that I could find, is the draw in amps. So, let’s look at the fuse for reference. In the manual it lists that the fuse as 15Amps. It also notes that any power supply should be able to produce at least 20Amps. To determine this number you could probe / meter the device while in use.
Next the 32AH Pelican Case:
I didn’t see a ton of information on this but it does say that the max output for this device is 10Amp or 150Watts. So it would not meet the 20Amp requirement shown in the user manual for the radio. We know that P=V*I, so for this radio 14VDC * 20Amps = 280Watts, far less than the output.
Finally, keep in mind these values are all worst case values (and I hope, are actually calculated when they made the radio, rather than just picking a fuse that didn’t blow when they plugged the radio in). In normal use, this radio may run just fine while under normal load and draw far less current than the 10Amp limit of the panel. An alternative may be to connect the radio to a deep cycle battery (check the output voltage before buying) and then simply trickle charge the battery with a solar panel.
The solar unit you are looking at would likely work to power the radio for RX, but would not handle any TX.
My “go box” has an icom 7100 in it. I have a power supply so if power is available I can just plug in.
When power is not available I have two 10 AH batteries wired in parallel that are kept charged by a plug in charger at home and have two solar cell chargers that I use in the field. The solar cells will charge the batteries but are not capable of running the radio in TX mode.
I agree with the previous poster that you will likely have to use a battery and have the solar for charging purposes. If anyone makes a solar cell device that is powerful enough to run your radio in TX mode and still be portable I am not aware of it.
thanks guys! In 5 minutes being here on the forum I found a lot much more useful information than I did in the last 5 days from trying to learn all of it alone! thanks again!! it would have required a lot of focusing and adderall xr as this stuff helps me to focus better.