How To Keep A Solar Panel From Overcharging A Battery

A solar controller with a battery temp sensor and adjustable setpoints will eventually pay for itself in battery life especially if one charges in areas with wild temperature extremes.

How to keep a solar panel from overcharging a battery.

It safeguards the deep cycle batteries from being overcharged during the day. A cheap pwm controller will do this ok though they are less efficient for the charging process. Once you ve attached the input wires to the charge connector you should have 2 loose wires each ending in an mc4 connector. I ve spent the winter designing a pwm solar charge controller which is now finished and working.

It is around 14v at 40c. If you want to get more efficient charge for your solar power you can use one of the many solar fed switch mode battery charger chips like the ti bq24650 this also gives you more flexibility for use of lifepo4 which is starting to replace lead acid. Using a solar controller limits the charging voltage to a safe 14 5v or so and protects the battery. A solar charge controller is a component that helps manage the power that is going into the battery store from the solar panel.

The solar power generated by the solar panel is received by the solar charge controller. As peter said you can overcharge a battery if you don t have a solar controller between the solar panel and the battery. Match up the male and female connectors with the opposite ones coming away from the solar panel and snap the mc4 connectors into place.