Arduino Solar Panel Charge Controller

Solar panel battery charge controller using arduino pictures of power box and arduino solar charge regulator.

Arduino solar panel charge controller.

So everythong works with dc and i do not have any inverters. The heart of the charge controller is arduino nano board. One can easily add the ideas from that project to this one. This is a simplified version of my solar panel battery charge controller using arduino.

When your load pulls power from the battery controller detects the voltage drop and immediately starts to charge battery again. 7 amps times 12 volts 84w p v i you lost over 66 watts but you paid for 150 watts. You can also use other arduino board like pro mini micro and uno. Now a days the most advance solar charge controller available in the market is maximum power point tracking mppt the mppt controller is more sophisticated and more expensive it has several advantages over the earlier charge controller it is 30 to 40 more efficient at low temperature but making a mppt charge controller is little.

Arduino regularly measures lead acid battery voltage and according to detected value switches the mosfet on to charge battery from solar panel and switches mosfet off when the battery is full. If you are planning to install an off grid solar system with a battery bank you ll need a solar charge controller. It is a device that is placed between the solar panel and the battery bank to control the amount of electric energy produced by sola. For example you bought a new solar panel from the market which puts out 7 amps.

That 66 watts is not going anywhere but it s due to the poor match of the solar output current and battery. It works on the principle of pwm which improves efficiency of the solar pv systems. This design is suitable for a 50w solar panel to charge a commonly used 12v lead acid battery. The 5v regulator is build into the unit i used and if not use a separate 5v supply.

Our solar panels are dumb and not smart enough to understand the battery conditions. It is used to maintain the proper charging voltage on the batteries so as the input voltage from the solar panel rises the charge controller regulates it preventing any over charging. At full charge conditions they will be 13 6v and will be 11 0v at full discharge. Arduino pwm solar charge controller v 2 02.

You can follow all the steps on his page but first take a look at the video. Arduino solar charge controller version 2 0 step 1. Assume we have a 12v 100 watt solar panel and it ll give an output between 18v 21v depending upon manufactures but batteries are rated for 12v nominal voltage. On the solar charge controller i can turn the load power on or off via button.

How the charge controller works. Under charge the setting of a battery is configured to 12 volts. The output voltage of the acs712 is 2 5v with no input while the spec sheet specifies 66 to 185 mv a output sensitivity. Charge regulator with power box connections to regulator inside the box.

Above is a generic arduino nano but the code will work on any arduino style microcontroller. Main functions of solar charge controller. Parts and tools required.