Ben is going Solar!

[Ryland]

If your citicar sits at home very much I would say to have the battery pack hooked up the inverter pack as well so your inverter can use that pack when you need the power and the sun charge them when you don't need it, you might not have full range in the EV at that point so it really comes down to if you want to us your garage more then you drive.

[bennelson]

Ryland, I thought about that too a bit.

A friend of mine (who also has a Citicar) is getting married this summer. Sounds like it might be out where there is no power.

I thought it would be pretty funny to drive a Citicar out there with the UPS and fire up a sound-system!

It would be a self-contained, portable power system that could drive itself around. He would get a kick out of that.

[Xringer]

That C-40 looks to be very versatile and a good investment, since it can be used for other applications.

It almost sounds like you could almost use those new panels directly tied to the Metro's pack.
Is there any surface area where you could install a couple on the car itself?
Too bad those things are so large!

[bennelson]

Unfortunately, the panels are about three feet square, and only output about an amp (but at good voltage!)

I wouldn't go through that kind of trouble for only an amp of juice.

However, the Citicar has a 48V pack, and one of these solar panels might actually look good on that! Still, it would be more to make a statement than for actual charging.

[bennelson]

I just got my Xantrex C-40 in the mail!!!!

I am now reading through the manual - all zillion pages of it. Actually, the documentation looks very good, and the controller will handle up to 125Voc.

[Xringer]

Cool.. 125v is up there.. Forget reading all one zillion pages, just skip to the
section where the C-40 is used to charge batteries..



Looks nice inside!

I guess it can work with lower powered panels too.
Solar Charger For Electric Lawn Mower

[bennelson]

I just did a test-wiringup of the controller.

It is cold and cloudy out today, so I just did a simple 12V test in my living room.

It was rigged with a 15watt PV panel that is one of three from my Harbor Freight solar kit.

Everything works right, the little green light blinks and everything!

YouTube - Xantrex C-40 Charge controller arrives!

[bennelson]

I had a little time this afternoon, and it was nice and sunny, so I decided to see if I could get just ONE of the PV panels hooked up to the controller and a battery pack.

I wired up the panel to the C40 solar charge controller through a basic disconnect with a built in fuse.

The battery pack is just four 12V batteries wired in series. I simply put an Anderson connector on there as a manual disconnect.

Hooking everything up really was just as easy as loosening and tightening some screws. The Xantrex manual has nice clear diagrams, and easy to follow hook-up directions. The manual is even spiral-bound, so it stays open to the right page when you set it down.

I hooked everything up, and flipped the PV disconnect to the ON position.
The only thing is, there's absolutely nothing to indicate that there is power going from the PV panels to the batteries.

On the charge controller, a green LED blinks to indicate that the batteries are hooked up, and the rate of flashing indicates the relative charge.

Right now, having the optional display for the charge controller would be nice. That would show me the volts/amps/watts going through it.

For now, I will just have to scrounge up a small ammeter and voltmeter to add to the system. On the full setup, I will also need a lightning arrestor, a grounding spike, and a GFI.

Here's a video overview.

YouTube - DIY 48V Solar - One Panel Test

[Daox]

Thats a perfect application for something I've been wanting to work on (time, time, where does it go?). I would love to make an arduino based watt hour meter. It would read voltage, amps and also log watt hours. This would all be displayed on a nice little LCD. I just need to pickup some stuff from Tom and I'd have the components necessary to build one. I'll be picking them up this Sunday actually.

[bennelson]

I checked the panel and batteries when I got home today (another sunny day today, yea!)

The voltage of the batteries was all around .5 volts higher than they were yesterday - so some power was getting into the batteries all day!