| Description |
F-6 is a science camp located on the south shore of
Lake Fryxell. The camp consists of a two-room kitchen/lab cabin and a
600-W solar electric system with diesel generator back-up.
600 watts of solar panels are mounted on a “top of
pole” rack. This rack of panels has manual
adjustments for altitude and azimuth, allowing residents to manually
track sun for greater net power production over the course of the day.
Coming from the array, there is a twist-lock plug that facilitates
removal for storage of the solar panels in the winter.
Between the array and batteries is about 50 feet of 10/2 direct burial
conductor protected by a 60 amp breaker. This feeds into an Outback
MX60 MPPT charge controller on the Outback power panel.
The battery bank consists of 8 ea, 100 amp hour gel cell batteries
configured in a 24-volt bank rated at 400 amp hours of electrical
storage. Coming from the batteries is a 24/12-volt DC-DC
converter that supplies both radios and Optiphones with 12 VDC
power. Two 4/0 cables carry power from the battery bank to
the Outback power center.
 |
Power
panel with FX 2000 inverter, AC and DC power panels, MX60 charge
controller, and Mate (top right) inside the kitchen area at F6. |
A Tri-Metric system meter is mounted in the wall of the Lab allowing
users to evaluate the present condition of the battery storage, as well
cumulative amps in/out of the system.
On the left side of the Outback power center is an AC breaker box that
provides circuit protection for the AC wiring between the battery bank,
inverter, optional generator, and loads.
If battery voltage falls too low due to lack of solar input, or high
loads, the diesel generator can be started to recharge batteries and
power camp loads. A two-hour run time is usually sufficient to recharge
the batteries.
 |
Electrical
schematic. |
|
Photovoltaic
with battery bank and backup diesel generator.
