Do I Need A Charge Controller For Solar Panel

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.

Do i need a charge controller for solar panel.

For example if you have a 100 amp hour battery and a 10 watt panel you take 100 and divide it by 6 600ma and you get 166 6. Most 12 volt panels put out about 16 to 20 volts so if there is no regulation the batteries will be damaged from overcharging. Last summer i finally had the opportunity to set this up for demonstration with a small 12w solar panel and two different battery banks. You don t need a charge controller with small 1 to 5 watt panels.

It is the charge controller that regulates the charging of the batteries. Not at all times but frequently. It is a device which most importantly properly charges a battery or battery bank enabling as long a life as possible. I get asked this question quite often and the answer is almost always a resounding yes.

It detects when to allow the maximum available charge that the solar panels can produce to be applied to the batteries and it also detects when the battery is fully charged and cuts off the charge supplied by the solar 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. There are always caveats to everything however. 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.

If the quotient is above 200 you don t need a controller. The charge process is performed in a smart or intelligent way. A charge controller or charge regulator is basically a voltage and or current regulator to keep batteries from overcharging. Anything beyond that and you do.

The safest way to figure out if you need a charge controller is to take battery amp hour capacity and divide this by the solar panel max. If the number is less than 200 than you need a controller.