Homebrewed Electricity > Controls
Charge controllers
Flux:
With solar you can disconnect when the battery is full or short the panels. With wind or hydro it is a bad idea to disconnect the load, the turbine runs away and volts get out of control.
You can use a solar controller but that still leaves you with the problem of dealing with the wind and hydro. If you want only one controller than you can use diversion control on the lot.
If it is a large system then it may make sense to try to use the waste heat but for small systems there may not be enough heat to be really worth the effort. Dumping 50W to a hot water system is probably not worth the effort but 500W is a different matter.
The size of controller depends on your source of power, you can easily get 60A controllers so unless you have a lot of power they should do all you want.
If you have solar and hydro you may easily be able to size your installation so that you don't need to dump a great deal, unless you can use the heat, there is little point in having more input power than is needed to get the batteries up on a daily basis. With a bit of luck the wind and solar compliment each other and the hydro should be fairly constant .
With only one source you need battery capacity to last several days and you need a lot of potential charging power to get them back up after a lean period so you may need more dump than with a multiple power source where long periods with nothing are less common.
If you do go for using the heat you can either dump to low voltage heaters, simple and effective but heaters are not standard items, or you can use the controller to turn on an inverter and dump to mains voltage heaters. In that case you need an on/ off controller and not the usual pwm type.
ghurd:
Mconley,
Might be able to help a little more. Looks like I am only 50 miles east of you? A to Y-town.
Shoot me an email.
G-
Frank S:
I was reading about the diversion controllers that Flux was talking about and came across this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/440-AMP-12v-24v-48v-Solar-Wind-Charge-Controller-HV-/181090265022?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a29d227be
Now I have a question for the experts. given that I am contemplateing setting up a system for my RV which may later become the baseline core system for a more permanent setting Anything such as this is a huge overkill for a RV system I know I'm just wondering if anyone knows about it or if the specs and test tell ay of you the quality versus price.
Testing page
http://www.ebay.com/itm/440-AMP-12v-24v-48v-Solar-Wind-Charge-Controller-HV-/181090265022?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a29d227be
Frank S:
If you cannot get the links to work try http://www.colemanair.us/
look on the left then scroll down to the top sellers catagory
http://www.colemanair.us/vp_asp/scripts/shopexd.asp?id=650&bc=no
ChrisOlson:
--- Quote from: Frank S on April 08, 2013, 02:59:44 AM ---If you cannot get the links to work try http://www.colemanair.us/
--- End quote ---
That's not a charge controller. It's a diversion controller. There's a difference.
--
Chris
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