Homebrewed Electricity > Solar
HF 1.5Watt Panel Question?
ghurd:
I had two outside unprotected a whole winter, plugs and all.
One still charges, but slower (break-in?). The LED is still good but it doesn't light in the circuit.
The other had wires rust off in the plug. PCB to the tip or ground?
The power wires showed signs of un-suited-ness. Stiff and dry.
But came out better than the 3-to-1 plug adaptor pigtail thing. 100% DOA.
G-
asheets:
What is your wiring setup like? I'm having problems getting aa's to charge on a 1:1 basis (1 panel to 1 AA). The best I can get is 1.2 volts. What am I doing wrong?
ZooT:
I don't know if you are doing anything worng....
I just use a 8 AA holder and a 4 AA holder and made shunts/battery replacers out of dowels and wire to take up the two empty slots, and then hook it up to one of those cheapo TPS-545/TW-910 charge controllers like the instructions say.....
Controller specs say 14.5 vdc max charge / 10 =1.45 vdc per cell....but I've never measured them.....I just run the LED lights with them and they work :)
When I first put the batteries in I'll let them charge for a few days before I start using them, and just leave the panel in the sun and use them every night.....
ghurd:
It's probably the low current. Mine tend to get to 1.2V pretty fast, but it takes a LONG time to get to 1.35V.
Energizer data sheets show they can be floated at 5% of the capacity without problems. So if the panel is 150ma for 4 hours, and the cells are 2500mah, it may never get past 1.3V.
I made a shunt regulator for my set-ups, but don't bother using it any more because they never get to 1.4V before I change out the betteries. And that is with more amps than the HF 12V 1.5W, and AAs from 1300 to 2250mah.
G-
ZooT:
So is it a bad thing that the batteries never get fully charged?
Will this shorten the useful life of the batteries to any appreciable degree?
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