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Post by triggerfish on Aug 10, 2019 11:41:44 GMT -8
Hi,
I've been running my GWP for a while now. Most of it works like it should. I need to tweak some thing here and there, but I have been busy with other things. Just got back from four weeks holliday and noticed I have not enough sunlight available to keep te batteries charged... I have a repetitive black period from about three o clock at night when the system shuts down until about eleven o clock in the morning when the battery is charged enough to start the system uo again. I already know this will get worse during the winter. So... How can I get more solar power? The obvious answer would be to add solar panels, but how far can I push that? Is there a limit in adding panels? I already have the zener diodes to protect from the voltage. I just read I should replace the couple of parallel ones with one bigger, so I'll do that next. So... How can I keep my battery charged enough to get through the nights?
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Post by SDL on Aug 11, 2019 13:20:04 GMT -8
First of all, make sure your battery is big enough to get through the night if it is fully charged.
You can continue to add solar panels (with the zener, they don't have to be identical, as long as they are 6V panels). You can push it pretty far and what you get is more power on cloudy days that is wasted on sunny days.
BP
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Post by triggerfish on Aug 12, 2019 5:01:27 GMT -8
First of all, make sure your battery is big enough to get through the night if it is fully charged. You can continue to add solar panels (with the zener, they don't have to be identical, as long as they are 6V panels). You can push it pretty far and what you get is more power on cloudy days that is wasted on sunny days. BP
Thanx,
Fully charged, the battery will last for two days at least, so no issue there. It just don't get charged enough to make it through the night. I'll start adding panels then  Make my setup look like the ISS |
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Post by SDL on Aug 12, 2019 9:05:27 GMT -8
Send us pictures!!!!!
BP
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Post by triggerfish on Aug 29, 2019 3:30:57 GMT -8
Two extra, larger panels, a new zener and enough solar power... The zener getting idiotically hot. I remove the two extra panels and get enough power as it seems... Apparently the old setup with the several parallel smaller zenrs, did not work like expected and cut down on power too much. The bigger,one piece 10W 5.6V is working fine and with the original setup, apparently providing enough power...  Should the zener be attached to a cooler maybe? |
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Post by SDL on Aug 29, 2019 5:18:02 GMT -8
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Post by triggerfish on Aug 31, 2019 4:13:05 GMT -8
Cooling  |
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Post by SDL on Sept 1, 2019 13:37:21 GMT -8
Very Macho indeed.
John
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Post by triggerfish on Sept 4, 2019 23:54:43 GMT -8
With a very cool zener Still pondering on mounting the extra panels.  |
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Make my setup look like the ISS 