Simple Solar Battery Charging System

I enjoy sending and receiving low powered Morse code (called "QRP" CW) over the amateur radio bands. I power most of my equipment with batteries that I charge in my backyard off a 40 Watt solar panel. Since Colorado receives a lot of sunshine, throughout the year, I almost never have any difficulty charging batteries when it's convenient for me. Most of the time, especially for these old/used gel cell batteries I do not use a charge controller* and rely on simple "alligator" clip leads for my connections. When time and money permit I hope to power most of my home off solar. However, as it is now, we subscribe to Xcel Energy's "Wind Source" to power our entire home at this time. It's something we've subscribed to for many years but believe it'll be more fun, in the future, to create our own power!

*Although I don't often use a charge controller I do, at times, insert a diode into the charging circuit to keep the batteries from discharging through the panel if the sunlight gets blocked by heavy cloud cover or I forget and nightfall occurs, etc. However, I even try to avoid using the diode, when I know I'm going to be home most of the day, since it creates a little bit of a voltage drop in the charging circuit...

Here's a YouTube video of my $20 lead-acid "Lawn and Garden" battery being solar charged: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmRnV3DooN0

Here is the YouTube video of my amateur radio station that's powered by these batteries at the time of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANevitNSlIk

Here's a page from my own website that features more solar info:
http://www.rogerwendell.com/solar.html

For the Earth!

Roger J. Wendell

05-03-2008

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• simple
• solor
• panel
• battery
• charging
• system

[Tornfreedom]

Definitely could have done with some actual figures, like Surface Area and Cost of Solar Cells, Currents and Watt-hours obtained, and some figures on your Homes' Power consumption and the output of your wind Generators. If Only to make it look properly Scientific amongst all these BS Free energy from Nothing Videos. A fellow Ham.

[zeekzilch]

@Tornfreedom

I can appreciate your concerns. However, this system is so darn simple (and small) there just isn't that much

more to explain. 40 Watt panel, cheap battery from WalMart, etc. - all to power some QRP (very low power drain) amateur radio equipment and reading lamp. So, there's plenty of room for folks to experiment with this to see what best fits their needs. Oh, and there's no wind-giny, mine is 100% solar. WB0JNR

[TheGondal24]

very good.sir plz send e-mail to me that how to make a small solar panel to charge my mobile of low cost.plz send to (mohsin-24@live.com)

[zeekzilch]

@TheGondal24

Sorry, I don't have any info on how to make a small solar panel. My experience has been to

find 'em really cheap and then do some simple (but safe!) wiring to the battery that needs to be charged.

[zeekzilch]

@imatelly

Wow, you bring up a good question that I've never thought about before, i.e., how many volts are too many to charge a 12 volt batter??!! Well, I don't have the answer but I do know that you need more than 12 volts to do the job. The panels I use typically supply about 18 to 20 volts while charging - that's probably a normal voltage ratio for most systems. But, to provide a 12 volt battery with 300 volts? I suspect that's way too much but can't give you a scientific reason why!

[imatelly]

@zeekzilch ok ty that did help, if the battery is 12 volts is there a limit to how much power can be used without hurting the battery i mean can 300 volts to charge it or is that too meny volts for a 12 volt battery,if i explained that right im just wondering how many volts is too much for a battery to take when charging and how meny volts at least are needed to even charge the battery,ty for your answeres this has been bothering me for a while and sorry for all the q's

[zeekzilch]

@imatelly

Thanks for the questions but I'm not sure I understand all of them but will try to answer. The best strategy is to use a charge controller to ensure proper voltage and charging. In my case I sometimes use a volt meter and simply check the battery's voltage to see if it's high enough for my needs. You can also do a water density check to test the charge but I've never done that as I'm not interested in dipping into the battery water/acid. Hope this helps?

[imatelly]

whats the max you can try chrging a battery depending on the batteries voltage and or what's the least amount of power needed to charge a battery depending on its voltage and does the panel go through a circuit before it gets to the battery sorry for the q's

[zeekzilch]

@jinnaraka

Good point except I don't use that much electricity - just enough to run a very low power transmitter, keyer, and small reading lamp.