THE WORLD OF RAILROAD RADIO BY VINCENT REH Power Your Radio With the Sun
WE OFTEN DON’T THINK about the operating power for our scanners. . . until we lose it. Anyone who’s trekked to an isolated train-watching location, camped along the tracks in the rough, or endured an extended power outage can recall the moment their scanner batteries died, turning their radio into an expensive paperweight. The well-prepared railfan will have multiple spare batteries on hand for their electronic devices — scanners, cameras, GPS devices, cell phones, laptops, tablets, and so on — but carrying all these spares can be a big a hassle and there’s no guarantee they will work as planned. To avoid disappointment, it’s always a
good idea to have a backup plan, which in this case would be a way to operate equipment or charge batteries in the absence of 110-volt a.c. line current or 12-volt d.c. car power. Fortunately for railfans, the increasing interest in renewable energy has led to a large uptick in the availability of online information resources and reasonably priced products to serve a variety of needs, including powering electronic devices using solar power.
How it Works Not surprisingly, the heart of a solar
power system is the power-conversion device, commonly called a solar panel. This panel converts the energy radiated by the sun into an electric current that can be used to power electronic devices or charge the batteries used to operate the devices. Because radio scanners use a relatively small amount of power, they can be powered directly by solar panels, including charging the batteries. However, some devices such as digital cameras and laptops use much more power and therefore would need to be powered by unreasonably wide solar panel arrays to work well directly connected. “Unreasonably wide” in our case means a size that would not be
easy to carry or set up in the field — although solar panels will work in any kind of daylight and even in the shade at reduced output, they must be exposed to a maximum amount of sunlight for optimum energy delivery. This might be a problem in cramped, wooded areas or when you’re constantly setting up and taking down while on the move. To overcome the size issue, for those using
a variety of electronic devices it’s better to use a smaller solar panel to charge a high-capacity portable storage battery that has the ability to operate larger devices directly and/or to charge the batteries contained within. Storage batteries are also useful in case of rainy days — literally, because when the sun isn’t shining there might not be enough power to operate any directly connected devices, making use of the battery mandatory. Keep in mind that it might take up to eight hours to recharge a dead storage battery, so it’s a good idea to plan ahead to have the battery on charge whenever possible — that is throughout the day whenever conditions allow. In addition to the solar panel, solar systems also require cables and related connectors/adapters to interconnect the solar panel with the electronic devices and other power-related accessories. The latter includes devices that measure and manage power including multi-function meters which indicate battery voltage and how much power is flowing from the solar panel to the storage battery and powered devices, and from the battery to the devices. Power management equipment includes accessory connection boxes that provide an easy way to interconnect the solar panel, devices to be powered, and the storage battery. Connection boxes often contain automatic switching circuitry that connects the solar panel to the storage battery for charging purposes when devices are off or in standby. In addition, when there is enough
$13.49 9.5
60 MARCH 2016 •
RAILFAN.COM
Options for solar power in the fi eld include the 40, 60, and 120-watt folding solar panels from Carmanah Technologies Corporation’s Go Power series of portable solar power kits. The 40-watt unit can be found on Amazon for under $250. It weighs about 12 pounds.
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