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hinterland
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# Posted: 14 Jun 2010 05:13pm
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Hi, We're new here and glad to have found this forum with our interests. We live in a remote area at the edge of the Boreal Forest in a log cabin. Water is from a shallow well with a hand pump, power in the cabin is from a large generator with interver and most recently a Powerbox 800 from Canadian Tire. Our question is regarding charging it with a solar panel. We've used the AC wall plug, the DC truck plug, but would like to make use of the solar option. Has anyone used a panel to charge this unit?
Thanks in advance,
hinterland
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hinterland
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# Posted: 14 Jun 2010 05:14pm
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I should mention, I am interested in running my macbook pro, (85w) charges it's internal battery when plugged in.
When I use the PowerBox 800 with the Macbook Pro, the alarm sounds after an hour.
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Anonymous
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# Posted: 15 Jun 2010 08:54am
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That normal, your computer drain a lots of energy from the small 26milliamp battery. as you drain very low your battery, you need a full day of recharging 6-10 hours) with at least a 30watt panel. Lower panel is good only to maintain the charge or to recharge after the use of a single or two CFL lamp.
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hinterland
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# Posted: 15 Jun 2010 12:01pm
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Hi,
Thanks for the info.
I looked online at the 30w panel from Canadian Tire, but I don't see that it has the "barrel" connecter that the Powerbox 800 manual mentions, is needed to connect to a solar hook up. Can we still make it work? The manual suggests connecting a barrel type connection and plugging it into the AC adapter input. Sounds like that is odd to us, seems like we should be connecting the solar terminal ends to the Powerbox's terminals that are used to connect jumper cables?
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Anonymous
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# Posted: 15 Jun 2010 01:15pm
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No! with your powerbox 800 you should have an AC charger, at one end you have the power supply and at the other end you have the barrel type of connector. this is what you need. Canadian tire have a kit made by sunforce with a bunch of connector and a 12 ft rapid connect line, it sale at around $24.00. in that kit you have an already made barrel connector. You can also find the connector at an electronic store like radio shack, in the user guide you have the size write OD x lenght + ID x lenght.
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hinterland
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# Posted: 15 Jun 2010 01:25pm
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Hi,
OK, will pick up one of these kits when I get to town to buy the 30w solar panel.
Thanks for the help
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Anonymous
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# Posted: 15 Jun 2010 03:34pm
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Check when you buy your 30watt panel! sometimes the multi connection come with the sunforce or motomaster panel.
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slacker
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# Posted: 20 Jun 2010 11:43pm
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Thought I post some shots from my solar laptop setup. I had a chance to get up to the cabin and test this weekend. The 5 watt panel is not nearly large enough, but it's OK for general testing. I just sunk a ground rod at the cabin so now I'm ready to properly add some larger panels to my roof. The PC is an Asus Eee PC 701. I have this hooked up as straight 12V, (no inverter) through a Radio Shack car charger which has selectable voltage and various size plugs. The eee PC has very little power draw, not sure of any laptop (netbook) that takes less. The netbook is running EasyPeasy (Ubuntu) Linux. I currently have a script that wakes the laptop, takes some webcam photos, then puts the laptop to sleep for 24 hours. I want to do a solar powered time-lapse photo shoot, like a trail cam, balancing battery power use and solar charge to the point where my batteries keep the thing running through the season.
12V_EeePC_1.jpg
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12V_EeePC_2.jpg
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battery_tricklechar.jpg
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hinterland
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# Posted: 21 Jun 2010 09:22pm
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Wow, quite a setup. I use a Macbook Pro, I currently use 2 powerpacks, a 600a to run the internet radio dish and modem, and the 800 I'm now using to charge the laptop up. It's 85w and I bought a special adapter to charge the macbook with the 800 using DC.
When it's charged, I just use the internal battery on the macbook, about 7 hrs if I just do mostly nothing....about 3.5 hrs if I use graphic programs.
I'll see how this works out, next purchase will be a 30 watt panel to recharge up both power packs instead of AC.
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slacker
Member
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# Posted: 1 Jul 2010 10:42pm
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Sorry for hijacking the thread. Here's a test run of the used satellite dish I found on Craigslist. We're going to drag it up to the cabin this weekend and try our luck at hitting the sweet spot in the sky. We're using the spare receiver from our bedroom. The display is a DVD player that has a video input and it's own internal battery. I'm planning to bump up the battery bank soon, hoping to go up to four deep cell 6Vs. Not sure if I'm going to do a direct DC solar vent fan first - before upgrading the cabin's battery bank.
Greetings from Philly
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