One solar panel, multiple charge controllers?

[Rob Seastrom]

Nan and Sandy Sanders <radiodog77 at pobox.com> writes:

> HI Rob. It should work but..... Keep in mind you will only need one or
> two hundred Ma max to keep the batteries charged if you start out
> charged so a 250 watt panel is over kill.

Yeah, that was mainly being driven by what might be available to me.
Entirely likely that I end up with a smaller panel.

> The other thing you will
> have to be careful about is rfi. Long connecting wires and switching
> regulators will be real easy to hear on your HF rig.

Well, the other approach is a regulator with no coils and a big power
transistor/heat sink on it (you know, a zener diode, op amp,
transistor sort of affair).  May make sense to turn solar power into
heat so we don't have a switching power supply around.  I bet those
are pretty quiet, at a high cost in efficiency.

> One other thing. It will not take long to approach the cost of a few
> hundred feet of 10-2 and an outdoor outlet box (digging a trench is
> good exercise).

There is that.  Wonder how much it costs to rent a chain trencher for a weekend.

-r