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Update on PCB, and a side project...

A project log for Solar Energy Generator

A solar energy system up to 500W in power for use with lithium batteries.

nathaniel-verleeNathaniel VerLee 09/15/2014 at 12:160 Comments

I have been hard at work routing the final PCB, and its coming out quite nicely. It doesn't look a whole lot different from the photo I previously posted because most of the work has been routing, and the placement was mostly finalized. The final design should go out tonight. In addition, I had a nice little distraction that has already been sent off to OSH park. This "Solar Panel Simulator" is a rather simple way to turn a power supply (which must be capable of doing CC limiting) into a panel simulator. The concept is rather simple: you hook it up in parallel with the supply, set in CC mode, and the thing you want to power (my project) and the power supply now appears to the load to have the V-I characteristic of a solar panel. The diodes basically act as a shunt and sink all the current when the load is not drawing anything. This will be very useful for all those cloudy days and late nights that I have wanted to test my system in accurately simulated conditions. 

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