Changed the angle on my solar panel and output jumped by over 3 times. Still not getting even half the theoretical max output. But it's a lot better than it was. Have charged a battery for my tools from it. Now charging some usb power banks. Think I need to make a better stand for the panel tho.
@stfn I have a 100w and a 50w. But am only using the 100w at the moment. This isn't a serious attempt at getting power from the sun for anything useful. It's just learning about stuff.
@quixoticgeek That is super cool, I am also thinking about getting a ~100W solar panel to learn stuff, I want to charge my 12V battery with it
@stfn what battery do you have? I killed a 15ah sealed lead acid by charging it too fast at some point. It had a max charge rate of 4.5a. Which my 100w panel exceeds at max
@quixoticgeek I have a 26Ah lead acid, and I am planning to charge from via thingy: https://botland.store/accessories-for-solar-panels/13313-dfrobot-dfr0580-solar-power-manager-for-12v-lead-acid-battery.html Hope that will control the current properly
@stfn that's putting out max 4a. So should be ok. But you won't get your full 100w from the panel.
@quixoticgeek huh, true, thanks for pointing that out, I need to rethink my plan. But probably I won't need the full power anyway
@stfn so in summer you'll get way more than your controller can handle. In winter it'll do very little. You'd be better to have 2x50w panels and around the equinox plug in the second panel. And unplug it in spring...
@quixoticgeek that is one way to do it. Or find a more powerful power manager, or just stick to a single 50W panel.
@stfn check what your battery can handle in the first instance.
@quixoticgeek 5.5A from the specsheet
@quixoticgeek what panels do you have?