Tactical
Folding SolarPanels & Austere Power Kits
We build the folding solar panels ourselves, in the colors the kit already wears, then pair them with a BB-2590 top hat and the exact cabling your radio or sensor needs. No solar controller. Charge the battery and run the device at the same time. Enduring power for as little as 2 lb.
Built by operators who carried the bad ones
Militarized solar kits are expensive, pack poorly, need dedicated solar controllers, and don’t typically charge batteries while devices use them. Our design eliminates those problems and cuts excess.
Over thirty years of power struggles led us to building our own solar kits
Our passion grew from bad experiences in Special Forces with hand-crank generators, bulky fragile panels, heavy unnecessary AC/DC inverters, bad cabling, and bad step converters. Mesh networks on unreliable power in the Philippines, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Operating unsupported in extreme weather on the Mongolian steppe sharpened our kitting vision. Remote sensor packages for DHS border deployments that needed reliable off-grid power gave us the opportunity to cut our teeth. In 2023 Protocable launched the Austere Solar Solution to close that gap. Finally, beginning in 2027 we will also begin in-house solar panel production.
Charge batteries while passing power to the device
The 2590 top hat sits on the BB-2590 and manages charge and load at the same time. The radio never sees the handover from sun to battery to sun again.
No solar controller in the ruck
The regulation lives in the top hat, so there is no separate charge controller, no extra box, no extra cable. Ruck space goes to what matters.
Runs on the battery you already carry
Everything stores into a standard BB-2590. No proprietary power bank, no second battery ecosystem to sustain, and the kit scales by adding batteries or panels.
Weight goes to watts, not packaging
Thin flexible cell laminate in a fabric fold with pocket and tie-downs. A full 100 W kit that keeps a radio up through the night weighs about the same as a second battery. It also eliminates the need for a dedicated 2590 charger: the top hat can charge batteries from a wide range of power supplies, further reducing kit.
Folding solar, made by Protocable
One construction from 20 W to 125 W: flexible cells laminated into a camouflage fabric fold, output lead in a sealed pocket, grommets and hook-and-loop for tie-down. Ordered by wattage and color.
PC-4641 Austere Solar Solution
Three parts and a cable. Everything in the kit is something we make or something the unit already has.
Folding panel
100 W Multicam standard. Any wattage and color from the range above.
2590 top hat
Clips on a BB-2590 and takes the panel, a vehicle or a power supply on the input side while feeding the device on the output side. Pass through, no controller.
BB-2590 battery
Standard issue. Storage for the night, and the kit scales by adding batteries.
Device cabling
Specify the radio when ordering: Silvus StreamCaster and TrellisWare leads are the standard options, and any other radio or sensor is a custom cable away.
PC-4638 · PC-4738 · PC-4693
Leave it behind. It stays up.
Unattended repeaters, radar and sensor nodes, observation posts: anything that has to keep running through the night gets a kit built around its own connector and power draw.
The standard kit. Ordered with the cabling for the radio it will support.
- 100 W Multicam folding panel
- 2590 top hat, 12 V
- Radio power lead as specified: Silvus PC-4638, TrellisWare PC-4738, or both
Tell us which radio cabling the kit must support when you order. Kits do not ship with a default lead.
For a radio that lives on a mast while the panel and battery sit on the ground.
- Kit as above, panel sized to the duty cycle
- 15 ft power + ethernet lead to the SC4400 primary port PC-4693
- Second 2590 for multi-day darkness
Enables long-endurance unattended radio deployments through periods of darkness.
Tell us the device and the mission length. We size the panel, pick the battery count, and build the cable to the device's own connector.
- Panel 20 W to 125 W, four colorways
- Nett Warrior, ODU, Switchcraft, Fischer, Anderson, MC4 or bare leads
- Multiple outputs from one top hat
- Vehicle or AC input for the same kit
Custom power solutions available on request. Want a first cut yourself? Run the solar scenario calculator with your site, month and device load.
The Austere Solar Solution enables long-endurance unattended radio deployments through periods of darkness. Globally fielded across various special operations organizations.
- Over two hundred kits fielded since 2025 across special operations organizations and their integration partners.
- Attritable by design. Priced so a kit can be left on a hilltop and written off, not signed for and carried home.