PWM Solar Charge Controller

Simple Solar Charge Controller for smaller solar setups & projects

tiefpunkt

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Description

There's a lot of really cheap PWM controllers from China, which are great for small-ish solar projects. They're small, easy to use and super affordable. Unfortunately, they're not as flexible to adapt to different battery setups. They are made for12 or 24V lead-acid batteries, and can sometimes also be used with 7S Lithium battery setups, but the adjustment range does not allow for other configurations.

This is the problem I'm trying to solve. I wanted a cheap and easy to build (& understand) solar charge controller to charge some 3S or 4S lithium battery packs, and learn a bit in the meantime. The controller should be configurable via a small display and a few buttons, but it should also be possible to just have some LEDs as status indicators, and skip the display completely to further reduce costs

Details

I started this project a while ago as a sub-project of my Roadwork Warning Lamp Solar Power Station. But it's become interesting enough to split it into its own project. I'll try to move over some of the content from there to here eventually.