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A comment on Solar Protocol.

Re:Solar Protocol by rrss on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @10:26AM (#31908107)
The charge controller is surprisingly large (to me) relative to the rest of the system. I don’t have much experience - is there a reason it needs to be, or is the charge controller significantly overspec’d for this 50W panel?

BOM (linked from github page): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X0RDVBC6ifIS6Qov1loz...

panel short-circuit current is 3 A, but is paired with a 20A charge controller.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Solar Protocol by BLO716 on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @11:17AM (#31908823)
MPPT controller has a better communication set of commands and you'll notice the ethernet port that can send TX/RX out to a monitor or connect to a network. That's where the general $15-100 charge controller falls off the map - think Horror Freight.

Mind you there are some spectacular Chinese PCB designs / implementations out there for cheap, but off the shelf this is a fairly inexpensive / future proof / expandable unit should more power come off that.

I use something similar and have a wifi module that reports out to a dashboard in the house and can take remote commands from a phone if within bluetooth range.

[ Parent | on HN ]