Does anyone have any info on running a wrt54gs on a solar system with battery backup?  I am trying to make a "wireless network in a box" kinda thing.  Any info would be greatly appreciated.

thought about it but being put off by the price(and size) of the solar panel for the 12v @ 1A requirement.

12 Volt, 1 Amp. You are gonna need some serious solar panel to do that.

Looking upwards aof about $130 USD for a panel thats gonna come remotely close to your requirements.

I'd be more inclined to go out and buy a deep cycle lead acid battery and permanently power the WRT off that, using the solar panel to charge the battery (dont forget, you take out power at a rate of 1 amp, you need to put that and then some back in). Otherwise it all becomes messy with having cutout switches and fancy stuff in to do the switchover when you do AC power

this is a work related project so the price does not really matter to much.  we would like to have a model.  any info you have would be great.  thanks

also i noticed that you mentioned using ac to poewr the router.  wouldnt it make more sense to keep the current in dc and not worry about an adapter.

heh yea, I was making reference to the fact that if your limitation involved having to use AC power as a primary power source, with the DC backup, all the switch gear to do to switch over to the backup supply with a power outage tends to be a pain in the ass.

If moneys no object, I'd be looking at a deep cycle battery and a solar panel that is a 15V, 1.4 or whatever amp. How sunny is your location?

Deep cycle is important - you'll destroy a car battery very easily if you get a cloudy day and it gets run down.

http://www.cyb.com.au/automotive/prod_i … le_why.htm

There isnt really all that much to it, just wire the WRT to the battery, and the battery to the solar panel. You may want to put a battery condition meter in there somewhere to help regulate the charge given by the panel too.

*edited out some 2am mistakes*

I have been wondering the same thing. I noticed that one of the network cams I have been installing lately is 12v.  The camera is a Panasonic kx-hcm270. Its a network camera with a 802.11b radio built in. I hooked my marine battery to it and it runs for 2 weeks per charge. I'm betting I could get a wrt to go at least a week on one charge. I plan on doing some testing, but have been waiting on the new asus wrt clone that has usb 2.0 support to try and do a full blown test with a 30 watt panel.

You can check out the camera here..
http://test.rrust.com:8083/Top

thats a salt block set up in Iowa 200 yards from my house

just from the spec, the new ASUS may not compatible with openwrt as it use another broadcom chip, not the 47xx. It seems to be the same as the Netgear 634U.