Alternator With A Solar Panel

If you have two devices tied directly to the battery and each can provide a way to charge the battery at the same time you may end up with an overcharged battery or backfeeding one charging system with the other.

Alternator with a solar panel.

Example you have 300 watts of solar panels on your camper s roof and two 12 volt batteries. Solar panel costs fell 53 percent in 2012. So far this 445 watt solar panel setup combined with the alternator has worked perfectly. One method of doing this is to use the alternators to recharge storage batteries.

But the module cost makes up only about 33 percent of the total cost of building operating and maintaining a solar plant. An alternator works by converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. The charge controller should not be hooked up in line between the alternator and battery. In order to calculate this you just have to divide the watts provided by your solar panel by the number of volts in your battery bank.

Most rv s have a way of isolating the power coming from the alternator or another source like generator or solar charge controller. Your solar panel s and charge controller are coming from an entirely different path. Solar controller except for small trickle charge systems all solar systems should have a solar controller. For simplicities sake think of it as power going from the alternator or the charge controller to the batteries but not the other direction.

The purpose of a controller is to prevent batteries from being overcharged apply the optimal charging current to the battery bank and prevent current from back flowing from the batteries to the solar panel at night. You can use car alternators to power a home. Outside van estimated that in ideal sunny conditions my solar panels can pull up to 30 amps per hour. Enable dc dc charging from your alternator to a secondary lithium agm or flooded battery bank.

This setup helps to simplify the needed calculations for this type of power.