Solar for Camp TV

[sawbill]

A chum of mine has given me his second satellite dish for use at camp but unless the system has a small source of power to keep the receiver powered up, the unit has to be brought back into town for rebooting every week or so when the TV isn't used. That's a royal pain in the butt. The TV, camp lights run off my generator when I'm there.
He's suggested a solar panel would do the trick.
So, question is, what and how large a panel, charge controller, battery, etc. is needed to keep a battery charged so that the receiver has enough juice to operate for extended times while I'm away?

[Foxx]

I have Star Choice and I leave receiver at camp.

[Foxx]

Sorry Sawbill, I wasn't ready to send, wrong key. My receiver holds it's signal for about 5 weeks, so if I go in in this time frame everything works good. If you have cell service and no receiver signal, you can call Star Choice ( Shaw ) and they just re-boot it, takes very little time.

[sawbill]

Unfortunately I don't have cell service nearby so that's why I have to go with the solar system to keep it up.
You get about 5 weeks! Man, I'm lucky to get 5 days.

[Snowwalker]

Go to home depot and get a kill-o-watt. Plug your receiver into it and see what it's consumption is when the receiver is turned off. Multiply that by 24(hours). For example if it is drawing 1 amp X 24 then you need to supply 24 amp/hr of power. That is 24 amp/hr at 120 AC BECAUSE your receiver plugs into a 120v ac outlet. To figure out the DC current draw you have to multiply the 24 amp/hr @ 120 by 10.
So now you need to supply 240 amp/hr over the course of the day. You will need to use an invertor to supply the 120 ac from a dc battery bank( notice I said bank as in a group of batteries).

Now your system may not ( likely will not draw) draw a full amp when turned off. But you would need to have enough battery storage to supply power over the full 24 hours with room to spare. If you discharge your batteries more then 20%( starter/car battery) or 50%( deep cycle) on a daily basis you will destroy them very quickly. You will only get up to about 4.5 hours of full sun each day. What that means is that an 80 watt panel that can make 6 amps will only do that for 4.5 hours per day IF there are not clouds and the panel is clear( no snow, dust/dirt). It will still generate just not the full 6 amps. So over the hours of day light it will start off giving a few milliamps and build to the full 6 amps and then reduce back to a few milliamps before the controler disconnects it.

As a guess I would think if you had two 80 watt panels and good sized battery bank with a small 100 to 150 watt invertor it should work. You would want a battery bank with four times the reserve that the system can draw in a day. So if your system draws 240 amp/hrs in a day, four 12v 240( or more ) amp/hr lawn mower batteries will give you a 960 amp/hr and should only discharge to about 20% ( which makes them last along time).

This is just a rough estimate. If you can give more details it would help.

[JBen]

Sawbill, I did a very light search on google. From what I could see with cursory glances, many receivers draw
25-45 watts when in use
5 watts when not in use.

I use some goal zero products to power a number of different things when I don't have electricity.
The "generator" (battery) I have will hold 150 watts. If Im running my LED lights ( 2 of them that draw 3 watts each), by the numbers I'll get 25 hours run time on a full charge and no trickle charging. If Im running or charging my laptop I might get 3 hours run time or take about 6 hours to charge my laptop( it uses more watts). So on paper, my small battery could run a receiver that draws 50 watts for 3 hours. Enough to watch a movie or two each night.

To charge the battery:
I have two 40 watt panels. From a full drain, and on a bright sunny day, it will take close to a full day to recharge. The benefit to these batterys though is I can recharge them numerous ways. By plugging it into a standard outlet ( A gas Gen), my Car, the sun...

As snowalker said. Determine the draw, figure out the watts and go from there.
You can also buy larger batterys but they come at a cost, a steep one. If you have a couple grand burning a hole in your pocket you can buy one big enough to run your satellite, tv or a small fridge. So you could in theory bring the battery (solar generator) back and forth with you as I do. When you go to camp its fully charged, hook it up to 2 or 4 40 watt panels or 2 80w panels and leave it trickle charging. If it drains and my car is nearby, I can if I really need to, charge it from my car. The problem with solar is who knows what the weather is going to be. If your socked in for 4 days and no sun....And subsequently cold temps.
They kneecap batterys.

These are in US prices
http://www.goalzero.com/power-packs

If you check the specs for the 400 watt battery, if gives you and idea what you can run and for how long from a full charge, and it claims a 90 watt panel, will recharge it from zero in 9-18hours of full sun. Take that with salt.

If you need to leave it hooked up as you do, your probably going to run into more problems with the batteries, than the panels. Cold temps when your not there heating the camp, will gut them.

[delmer]

I'm making the assumption that you have a Bell receiver. If so, the unit does not need to be connected 24/7 to prevent the programming from falling off. A few hours a day powered up is all that is needed to ensure your programming is still there. If you can get some sort of mechanical timer, you wouldn't need all the battery power required for a full time connection.

[topher]

I'm making the assumption that you have a Bell receiver. If so, the unit does not need to be connected 24/7 to prevent the programming from falling off. A few hours a day powered up is all that is needed to ensure your programming is still there. If you can get some sort of mechanical timer, you wouldn't need all the battery power required for a full time connection.

Shaw direct doesnt use cards.. so it needs to be connected to the satelite... or it loses its authorization.... and than u need to call in and get it connected again.

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[darren123]

Why not just buy a second dish they are a dime a dozen on kijiji. Bring it home and use it there as well.


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[sawbill]

Yeah, its a Bell receiver. Looks like I have to do some shopping for more gadgetry to get this thing up and running. I think this receiver is drawing 4 or 5 amps (according to the label on the back) but I'll check that out and make sure.
Todays technology is great but it sure ain't simple!