richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) (11/05/90)
Given a solar panel that puts out about 15-volts, an assortment of 6-volt and 12-volt car and golf-cart batteries, and a simple Tripp-Lite inverter; what kinds of precautions are necessary to keep the batteries charging and functioning? Do the batteries need to be matched? The solar panel does have a diode to keep the batteries from discharging through it. -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com
robk@altos86.Altos.COM (Rob Kleinschmidt) (11/06/90)
In article <1990Nov5.145018.4481@pegasus.com> richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes: >Given a solar panel that puts out about 15-volts, an assortment of >6-volt and 12-volt car and golf-cart batteries, and a simple Tripp-Lite >inverter; what kinds of precautions are necessary to keep the batteries >charging and functioning? Do the batteries need to be matched? > Batteries should be matched. The golf cart batteries sound promising. Car batteries are not generally used for solar because they do not do well under deep discharge regimes. Ideally, you would have a volt meter or other device to prevent completely discharging the batteries. Unless I am very much mistaken, the Tripp-Lite inverter is not a good choice, since it uses almost as much current under zero load as it does at 100 % of capacity. If you use this device, you will want to shut it off when it is not doing something useful. Trace, Heart, and Heliotrope make better units. > >-- >Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com Rob Kleinschmidt
Nandu@cup.portal.com (Narendra J Kulkarni) (11/06/90)
The batteries also need to be matched for voltage & capacity, if you are usin g 6V batteries in series to make a 12V battery, you need to match the AH ca pacity, also if you are connecting the two or more 12V batteries in parallel to increase the AH capacity, they should be matched for open ckt voltage with in few 100 mV, otherwise u can use isolation diodes, low voltage schottky diodes while paralleling the batteries, this will prevent the battery with hi gher voltage from trying to charge the other battery, also try to include some type of overcharging protection, use a relay to disconnect the battery if the open ckt voltage of a 12V battery becomes 13.6v or above