Power Supply Problem on Mt Wombat
- Thread starter VK3YNV
- Start date
All repeaters back online. Batteries replaced, so we now have about 60 hours of runtime on reduced services in the event of a mains power outage, compared with 4 hours on the 15-20 year old batteries.
The relay on the mains power supply failed after the battery failure. Forensic examination of relay is in progress.
The relay on the mains power supply failed after the battery failure. Forensic examination of relay is in progress.
Looks like the IRLP node is not receiving audio over the network, or if it is it's not getting COS, but it's still transmitting audio over the network fine, so it's either a fault in the COS detection or a fault in the audio path. Meanwhile local repeater operation is working normally. Just no incoming IRLP audio over the internet.
EDIT:After a few power cycles and a bit of remote tweaking, the inbound audio seems to be now working... so for now IRLP is up and running. Will watch it carefully for a while.
EDIT:After a few power cycles and a bit of remote tweaking, the inbound audio seems to be now working... so for now IRLP is up and running. Will watch it carefully for a while.
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Hi All, I agree with Robs' engineering logic, but I would not vote to put solar panels on the site. Too many rocks!!!! You will have to read between the lines to understand that statement. I see a number of problems with installing solar panels on Mt Wombat elv 799m AHD. Read on.
My company supplied and installed a stand alone system on Mt Strathbogie elv 1015m AHD. During winter months, the cloud cover was down to 900metres, We had put a wind generator on the 60metre tower, but that failed due to snow and icing damaging the blades. The site was vandalized, but the solar system was not taken, the lower solar panels were around 40m above ground. The 12 of lead acid batteries at 1000ampere hours (2 banks in parallel) were too heavy to remove.
Mt Wombat, with the replacement batteries giving a few days of backup power and the ability to turn off the repeaters to conserve battery capacity for emergency operation of 2m and UHF CB, at present I believe we have sufficient capacity, for the time being! That could change tomorrow!
If we upgrade to lithium batteries, then, what is the physical size and capacity, keeping in mind the limited accommodation within the 1.8m cubed room and the expected return of the 2m repeater cavities. It is hoped the the 6m cavities can be upgraded to a small rack mounted helical cavity diplexer. this would allow the 2m cavities some wriggle room.
Cheers Geoff VK3ZNA
My company supplied and installed a stand alone system on Mt Strathbogie elv 1015m AHD. During winter months, the cloud cover was down to 900metres, We had put a wind generator on the 60metre tower, but that failed due to snow and icing damaging the blades. The site was vandalized, but the solar system was not taken, the lower solar panels were around 40m above ground. The 12 of lead acid batteries at 1000ampere hours (2 banks in parallel) were too heavy to remove.
Mt Wombat, with the replacement batteries giving a few days of backup power and the ability to turn off the repeaters to conserve battery capacity for emergency operation of 2m and UHF CB, at present I believe we have sufficient capacity, for the time being! That could change tomorrow!
If we upgrade to lithium batteries, then, what is the physical size and capacity, keeping in mind the limited accommodation within the 1.8m cubed room and the expected return of the 2m repeater cavities. It is hoped the the 6m cavities can be upgraded to a small rack mounted helical cavity diplexer. this would allow the 2m cavities some wriggle room.
Cheers Geoff VK3ZNA
VK2RK
Active member
In my concept, a single panel was to provide top-up charge during long periods of blackout not the total site power.