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Various Tips

Charging regulators

Charging regulators for wind generators are different from regulators for solar panels. If the system features wind and solar energy two regulators are needed. Each regulator has to be connected to the terminals of the battery directly (via a fuse, of course!).

Increasing battery and solar panel capacity

If you want to combine two (or more) batteries to increase capacity, interconnect them parallel -that is, interconnect both positive terminals with a heavy gauge cable. There must be a fuse in the cable near every positive terminal. Interconnect the negative terminals without fuses. Interconnecting solar panels can be done accordingly without fuses.

Low voltage disconnect circuit

Consumers (your access point, wireless router, or other device) will be connected to the charging regulator. Most charging regulators come with a low voltage disconnect circuit. The low voltage disconnect circuit should never need to switch off, otherwise there is a serious design flaw or damage present. If it happens that there are two or more regulators in the system that have a Low Voltage Disconnect Circuit, then connect the consumers to one regulator only. Otherwise the regulators could be damaged.

Calculation

The calculation of a solar system is not much different than the battery buffered system (as detailed earlier). Obviously, the times when no energy is available for charging could be very long, and there is no fixed charging current that could be used for calculation.

A well designed system should be able to fully recharge an empty battery within a few days in good weather conditions while delivering power to the consumers.




Last Update: 2007-01-16