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will a 15v 52watt solar panel charge four 12c dv 55ah batteries?
Posted by adminI have made a 15v dc 52watt solar panel and I going to be trying to charger 4 12v dc 55ah batteries. I get about 6 hours of sun on my panel. Spec below, is that a big enough panel to charge the batteries???
I have 30 3×6 solar cells wired together Cell Specifications: (Watts): 1.75 Wp (Amps): 3.5 Imax (Volts): 0.5 V max which is where I got my 15g 52watt max (if math is wrong plz tell me) The Battery type: 12Volt 55.0ah NB Sealed Lead Acid Battery. I am using a mppt solar charger.
>will a 15v 52watt solar panel charge four 12c dv 55ah batteries?
Eventually. But the panel seems way undersized. Some rough calculations assuming you live in a nice sunny desert:
Under ideal conditions the mppt charger should supply about 4 amps into the 12 volt batteries. Lets say 70 hours to do a complete charge. Optimistically lets say you get half of that for 6 hours per day and don’t use any power from the batteries.
(140 hours to charge)/(6 hours per day)= 23 days Actually it will be longer because the batteries have a self discharge rate and the charging isn’t 100% effecent.
Another way to look at it is from a power standpoint.
(26 watts) X (6 hours per day) = 156 watt-hours per day. So maybe you can run a 26 watt (100 watt equivalent) CFL for 2-3 hours per day plus charge the batteries enough to make up for the self discharge rate of the batteries.
Of course, if you don’t live in a nice sunny desert, the situation is worse. And even in nice sunny desert, things will be worse in the winter.
Info from your second question:
———————————————
Now has three 52 watt panels
Needs 12 volts at 93 amps to run all his equipment 12 hours per day.
671 amp-hr of 12 volt batteries
three 60 watt charge controlers
Located in PA, USA
OK, your equipment needs 1120 watts to operate (12 volts X 93 amps= 1116 watts)
That’s 13.4 kWH per day or 402 kWH/month
Under ideal conditions your three 52 watt panels produce 156 watts. Figure 1/2 that under ideal conditions in PA.
1120 watts/ 78 watts = 14.4
In other words, you would need about 15 times as many panels to just directly operate your equipment on at noon on a sunny day in PA! That should give you an idea of how far off your calculations are.
There is a calculator at http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=page_2 for estimating how big a system you need. I punched your numbers in, it came back with a 4444 watt minimum system. Their 4500 watt system includes twenty two 205 watt solar panels. http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=4510_watt_off_grid_system
>OK here is my idea that i am in to far to back out
For this kind of project, you need professional guidance.
Technically, any solar panel can charge any battery, but it would take quite a long time do do so if it is a large battery. If you are aware of the voltage and either amp or watt rating of the unit that is usually used to charge the battery, the solar panel should have a similar power output to that charger to work well.
amps and watts are quite similar, and can be converted with this simple formula:
W=watts; V=volts; A=amps;
W/V=A; V*A=W;
When charging batteries, it is always wise to use less amps than needed, and roughly the same voltage as the battery being charged. The less amps used to charge batteries means the battery will take longer to charge but will last a lot longer in the long-term.
Your solar panel should be sufficient to charge the battery, but you should test charge it to see if it works well. I recommend using a multimeter to check the batteries voltage every couple of hours. Once the battery reaches 12v, it should be fully charged. You should also check the amps in case they are not at the expected value (take caution when checking amps with a multimeter, when i do it i always end up melting my multimeter leads). The battery should be fully charged from anywhere between 6-48 hours. if it is charging faster, the solar panel has too much power. if it doesn’t charge in this time frame, the solar panel is not powerful enough.
References :
>will a 15v 52watt solar panel charge four 12c dv 55ah batteries?
Eventually. But the panel seems way undersized. Some rough calculations assuming you live in a nice sunny desert:
Under ideal conditions the mppt charger should supply about 4 amps into the 12 volt batteries. Lets say 70 hours to do a complete charge. Optimistically lets say you get half of that for 6 hours per day and don’t use any power from the batteries.
(140 hours to charge)/(6 hours per day)= 23 days Actually it will be longer because the batteries have a self discharge rate and the charging isn’t 100% effecent.
Another way to look at it is from a power standpoint.
(26 watts) X (6 hours per day) = 156 watt-hours per day. So maybe you can run a 26 watt (100 watt equivalent) CFL for 2-3 hours per day plus charge the batteries enough to make up for the self discharge rate of the batteries.
Of course, if you don’t live in a nice sunny desert, the situation is worse. And even in nice sunny desert, things will be worse in the winter.
Info from your second question:
———————————————
Now has three 52 watt panels
Needs 12 volts at 93 amps to run all his equipment 12 hours per day.
671 amp-hr of 12 volt batteries
three 60 watt charge controlers
Located in PA, USA
OK, your equipment needs 1120 watts to operate (12 volts X 93 amps= 1116 watts)
That’s 13.4 kWH per day or 402 kWH/month
Under ideal conditions your three 52 watt panels produce 156 watts. Figure 1/2 that under ideal conditions in PA.
1120 watts/ 78 watts = 14.4
In other words, you would need about 15 times as many panels to just directly operate your equipment on at noon on a sunny day in PA! That should give you an idea of how far off your calculations are.
There is a calculator at http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=page_2 for estimating how big a system you need. I punched your numbers in, it came back with a 4444 watt minimum system. Their 4500 watt system includes twenty two 205 watt solar panels. http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=4510_watt_off_grid_system
>OK here is my idea that i am in to far to back out
For this kind of project, you need professional guidance.
References :
http://www.bdbatteries.com/panelcalculator.php
OK your math on the solar panel looks correct, but you are missing some critical information. What is the load on your batteries and for how long is this load being applied. Calculate the amp-hour load to see if your solar panel can recharge your batteries with the amount of sun light available. A safe engineering standard is to have twice as much capability as required. If you have a 200 amp load for 7.5 minutes, this would be a 25 amp-hour discharge and will take your solar panel over 7 hours to recharge your batteries.
Your solar panel can easily charge the batteries up to full capacity with out any load on the batteries, if the batteries are 50% discharged, this will take about 32 hours. CAUTION! I am assuming that you are hooking the batteries up in a parallel connection, that will give you over 200 amps of current. You should charge each battery up to full charge before you connect them together, if they are not at the same exact voltage when you connect them together, they will self adjust so that each battery is at the same voltage level, at 55 amps this could be a very large spark. Each cell, there are six (6) cells in a 12 volt battery, should be at 2.17 to 2.21 volts DC per cell at full charge. Make sure your battery has a voltage 13.02 to 13.26 volts open circuit or no load. This should be full charge if your batteries do not have this voltage level, say one battery is at 10 volts DC, it could have a dead or shorted cell. DO NOT use this battery until you can get it to hold a 13.02 to 13.26 volt DC level.
References :
http://brutuscontry.com
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