Correction, My panels have 2x12 cells.   ~5.5V at VMP, ~7V VOC

Now that I think about it, I don't think just using diodes will work.  The VMP 
and VOC are two far about to make it practical.

June 2, 2020 10:20 AM, "Peter VanDerWal via EV" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Now why didn't I think of that? 
> The chargers I've been looking at have MPTT(or at least they claim to), 
> however I could just use
> two panels.
> 
> I have a couple dozen panels left over from an abandoned project: 5V @ 240ma, 
> they have conformal
> coating so reducing them to 5 cells instead of 6 would be difficult.
> However, I could run a couple diodes in series...
> 
> June 2, 2020 10:02 AM, "Matt via EV" <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> What about no charge control, a solar panel whose Voc is 4.5v (so only 5 
>> series cells) and a
>> schotkey diode to prevent back flow
>> 
>> That would have the effect of limiting max voltage to ~4.2v, but at 4v only 
>> around 20% of Imp would
>> flow (ie charge rate slows right down past 3.6v)
>> 
>> How much power are you thinking?
>> 
>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>> 
>> From: Peter VanDerWal via EV
>> Sent: Wednesday, 3 June 2020 12:55 AM
>> To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
>> Cc: [email protected]
>> Subject: [EVDL] Question about charging small LiIon batteries
>> 
>> Somewhat off topic, but I'm hoping someone can help.
>> 
>> I'm building a solar powered weather station and plan to use 1 or 2 18650 
>> cells. There are tons of
>> small solar chargers available for these, however they all charge the cells 
>> to ~4.2V.
>> To maximize life from the LiIon batteries I'd like to keep them between 
>> 40-80% charged.
>> 
>> So what I'm looking for is either a solar module that I can set to only 
>> charge the cells to ~3.9V
>> or a way to make a 4.2V charger work.
>> Since I'm not having any luck finding 3.9V chargers what I've been thinking 
>> about is perhaps using
>> a schottky diode to drop the 4.2V to around 3.9V. however that would prevent 
>> the charger from
>> seeing voltage from the battery and it might not start charging.
>> So I'm thinking maybe putting a 100 ohm resistor in parrel with the diode, 
>> that would allow the
>> charger to see the battery voltage.
>> I still have to figure out how much current the microcontrollers, etc. will 
>> draw, but it's going to
>> be at least 10 mA when idle, with bursts up to several hundred ma when 
>> transmitting.
>> 
>> Does this sound like a reasonable plan? Any better suggestions?
>> 
>> Thanks, Pete.
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