FTFYThe unit you're looking for is amp hours.
If your setup consumes 5 amps and you want it to run for 5 hours, then you need a power source (battery/solar panel/generator/etc) that can provide 25 amp hours, a bit more because there are losses and systems consumption varies up and down.
Here's a link that will explain that better than I can, and it has a video too. Though it is about batteries, the concept is the same for solar panels or any other power generator.
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/defin ... 2Dseconds).
You should be able to properly size your setup after you go through the above.
You'll need to account for the fact that the panel will not get sun on 24 hours a day, so it'l have to provide all the current you need for whatever amount of ours it does get enough sun, so it may have to be very large indeed.
But actually, it's easier to use watt-hours (Wh), since the voltage varies at different parts of the system. So if you use 5V at 5A for 5 hours, that is 125Wh. If your panel produces 30W, it must do that for over 4 hours to put 125Wh into the battery. So to calculate the size of battery and panel, you first need to know the actual consumption (w) and the run time (h).
Statistics: Posted by davidcoton — Mon Apr 01, 2024 2:40 pm