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Substitute for a solar charge controller.

tohimjob

I am looking for a DIY way to avoid expensive solar charge controllers. On a sailboat, some panels are always in the shade and running panels in series reaches high voltages near salt water. Can you use an $8 buck/boost converter with an opAmp or regulator for each panel. Would one regulator cover the range of voltages outputted by the panel through the day or would it need to switch between regulators?

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  • My experience is the controller is the least expensive component in a system, the solar panels and batteries are a big expense.  The solar panels have a power curve the controllers attempt to keep them at the max power sweet spot. Batteries also use a 3 mode intelligent charging, trickle charge, volts charge mode, current limit mode to be nice to the batteries. 

    I'm assuming you want house (ship) power from solar rather than running a gas/diesel generator. Does it manually switchover now ? 

    Alot depends on how many panels you have, the ratings of those panels, the wiring, and if the boat's "microgrid" is desired to convert from variable DC to regulated DC (like to batteries), or variable DC to constant voltage constant freq AC.

    The converters can be a bulk converter, but it sounds like you want to build a DYI variable DC to regulated DC for each solar panel, and parallel all the little regulated DCs together  ? 

    A sketch would be very helpful.

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  • My experience is the controller is the least expensive component in a system, the solar panels and batteries are a big expense.  The solar panels have a power curve the controllers attempt to keep them at the max power sweet spot. Batteries also use a 3 mode intelligent charging, trickle charge, volts charge mode, current limit mode to be nice to the batteries. 

    I'm assuming you want house (ship) power from solar rather than running a gas/diesel generator. Does it manually switchover now ? 

    Alot depends on how many panels you have, the ratings of those panels, the wiring, and if the boat's "microgrid" is desired to convert from variable DC to regulated DC (like to batteries), or variable DC to constant voltage constant freq AC.

    The converters can be a bulk converter, but it sounds like you want to build a DYI variable DC to regulated DC for each solar panel, and parallel all the little regulated DCs together  ? 

    A sketch would be very helpful.

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