|
Home > Archive > Electrical Engineering > March 2007 > Solar Panel 100 W Regulator
You are viewing an archived Text-only version of the thread.
To view this thread in it's original format and/or if you want to reply to
this thread please [click here]
| Author |
Solar Panel 100 W Regulator
|
|
| M.C.C.R. 2007-03-09, 9:25 am |
| Dear members:
I bought a solar panel, with a 50W regulator. The question is that I
recently bought a second solar panel, and want to connect the two
solar panels at the same time to get more energy and better capacity.
The question is how can I get (or build up) a regulator with the new
capacity?
I'll thank a lot the help you can give.
Thanks in advance,
M.C.
| |
| cr500r 2007-03-09, 1:25 pm |
| If the output of the two regulators is DC then you could diode-or the two
regulators, like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode-or_circuit
Be sure to get diodes with enough ampacity, also Schottky diodes have a low
forward voltage drop, making them very efficient for this.
Make sure to watch the total power dissipation in the diodes, you will need
a heatsink.
| |
| TimPerry 2007-03-10, 3:25 am |
| M.C.C.R. wrote:
> Dear members:
>
> I bought a solar panel, with a 50W regulator. The question is that I
> recently bought a second solar panel, and want to connect the two
> solar panels at the same time to get more energy and better capacity.
> The question is how can I get (or build up) a regulator with the new
> capacity?
> I'll thank a lot the help you can give.
> Thanks in advance,
>
> M.C.
a lot of assumptions would have to be made to provide a response here.
is it a voltage regulator, current regulator or both? make / model? specs
of solar panel?
type of load?
could be that the existing unit will work fine for you if you have not
increased your load.
| |
|
| What is the wattage of the solar panels, and what is the load/
application? If you are using the solar panels to charge a battery,
usually you can just hook both regulators, with one solar panel per
regulator, to the battery without problems and they will self-regulate
the current delivered to the battery. If the solar panels are small
enough that your single regulator can handle both of them at once,
then you can use the diode-or method described by ccr500r to connect
them both to the regulator. Be warned that you will lose a significant
amount of the power from your solar panels in the diodes, and you
definitely need to make sure the diodes are large enough and well heat-
sinked.
I'm not quite sure whose regulator you are using, so the above advice
may not be applicable to your specific system. Generally, with smaller
systems like this using low cost (<$100) regulators, we recommend to
our battery charge regulator customers that they only connect one
solar panel per regulator to ensure maximum energy delivered to the
load. With larger house-sized systems we recommend they connect
multiple panels (up to the regulator's rating) to each regulator due
to the high costs of the bigger regulator/inverters.
Tim Kirk
tkirk@rogue-engr.com
www.rogue-engr.com
On Mar 9, 8:59 am, "M.C.C.R." <mcoto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear members:
>
> I bought a solar panel, with a 50W regulator. The question is that I
> recently bought a second solar panel, and want to connect the two
> solar panels at the same time to get more energy and better capacity.
> The question is how can I get (or build up) a regulator with the new
> capacity?
> I'll thank a lot the help you can give.
> Thanks in advance,
>
> M.C.
|
|
|
|
|