Solar Power for Repeater
and Battery Backup Power
As you can see, the power cord is un-plugged from AC, but it's
running from 24V power on the other side of the wall.

These are the two 12V 125AH batteries in series to make 24V. I bought
these at the Yuma Ham Convention. They easily run
my repeater during the night with plenty of capacity to spare.

On the top is a fuse block with a 80A fuse and current shunt for the
100A meter. It's wired in discharge polarity. The fuse is the shorter
one on the top. The small wires are for the current, voltage and wattage
display. All high capacity runs are using two 8 gauge
wires in parallel, safely providing up to 80 Amps of current. The 80Amp
fuse limits the system to just over 1900 watts output.

You can see the battery terminals and the series jumper. Note the two 8
gauge wires to safely handle high current

This is the solar controller, battery monitor and AC inverter. My
RF power meter for
the repeater is on top. The monitor display shows me the battery capacity
in AH that I
have left, real time wattage, current and voltage. The solar controller
only shows
battery voltage, and the inverter shows the AC voltage. This is a 2500
Watt inverter,
but the 80A fuse will limit it to about 1900 Watts. The buck converter on
the side is set
for 5.2V output for my Raspberry Pi. The top converter is now set to 12V for
my DSL modem,
Netgear router, and an Ethernet switch in my office.
The 5V buck converter now
powers the qso.com server (now on a Raspberry Pi 4),
my PBX, and repeater controller.
The switch on the right turns on or off the 24V bus that feeds everything.

These are two 290 Watt solar panels. They are wired in parallel and yield
about 500 watts
with direct sunlight. It easily runs the repeater while charging the
battery at the same time.
