Arduino charge controller

[beorn]

I built this to better control my power and battery charging for my off grid place it a incremental dump load charge controller it allows me to use all that extra energy that is generally wasted with a PWM charge controller. It also allows me to adapt it to other applications and voltages with minor programming changes and maybe a few different components.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw64zmDLh3I&feature=youtu.be

[Jerry D Young]

Wow! Well done, beorn!


I can see major advantages of using that to keep things charged.


Do have a couple of questions, however.


When the first relay switches to on, does it divert all energy to that load and remove the feed from the initial load (batteries I imagine) or does it add the second load to the first one, charging (or running) both at the same time?


Same question as more relays are activated?


Also, if, say, the second load is still taking power, but the feed is high enough to activate the third load, does the relay open and stop feeding the second load and only feed the third load, or do both continue to get power? Then, if the second load still needs power, but the third load is fully charged, with that relay open and the fourth relay close, feeding power to the fourth load?


Keep up the good work. I really enjoy your videos and learn so much from them.


Just my opinion.

[beorn]

With the first relay I will be wiring up both my baofeng charger and my cordless drill charger in the morning it will be the first to turn on and only draw about 55 watts or less it will remain on even when relays 2, 3 and 4 are on.Relays 2,3 and 4 will be in the winter some sort of heat source 100-150 incandescent light bulb/heat lamp or other small heat source like ground heat wires for greenhouse or supplemental grow lights.Anything where the extra solar energy can be put to good use and preferably stored in some form of thermal mass.During summer it will be put to cooling like fans and evaporative coolers I could even wire and program to run AC units or pump water from well into storage.It has many ways to use it. If 4th relay is on all other relays will remain on however this could be changed with programing or i could just use a single larger relay or solid state relay to turn on much larger appliances like AC or electric heaters or deeper well pumps.

[Jerry D Young]

Sounds like a good plan.


Thanks for the update.