Do I Need A Charge Controller For Solar Panel

However you still need a blocking diode to prevent the battery from discharging to the panel at night.

Do i need a charge controller for solar panel.

Solar charge controller functions. The charge process is performed in a smart or intelligent way. There are always caveats to everything however. I get asked this question quite often and the answer is almost always a resounding yes.

For further reading mppt pdf. How to select a solar charge controller what size of solar charge controller do i need. This means if your battery is full it stops the charging and if your battery is reaching an unhealthy. Do i need a solar charge controller.

Last summer i finally had the opportunity to set this up for demonstration with a small 12w solar panel and two different battery banks. If you have a five watt panel in the above example you take 100 divided by 3 300ma and you come up with 333 3. A solar charge controller is designed to receive power from a solar panel or array of panels and use it to charge a battery or bank of batteries. In general you do not require a charge controller that usually requires the minimum maintenance or drop charge panels including but never limited to the one to five watt panels.

Keep in mind that you don t need one when the panel releases less than or equal to two watts for every fifty battery amp hours. Since this is larger than 200 you do not need a charge controller. It does this by using a transistor to shunt the pv charging circuit.