TheSamba.com :: View topic - Diesel Heater With Battery Pack/House Battery Build

Wed Jan 16, 2019 11:11 pm

Well geez.
Things are just not coming up Hammer on this build.

I am looking for a solar charge controller that has the ability to adjust some things to take into account the strange battery voltage and chemistry that I am using.

So some may know that I bought an Electrodacus solar BMS/charge controller doo dad.
I still want it and it will work for the much larger house battery that I plan to build for my 4wd van.
It could technically work for this build but honestly its probably it should be put to better use.

The other issue with that controller, besides the fact that it is not an MPPT controller, is the fact that it will not be here until June.
I hoped to use this set up a couple of times before then.

I needed another controller.
Preferably, I needed one that was decidedly on the budget side of the scale.
I did some more research (AKA watched youtube vids and scoured ebay, amazon and some forums) and found a charge controller that seemed promising.

I bought it on amazon for $45USD and thought my problems were solved.
You could adjust all sorts of things and it stated specifically that it could do lithium ion.
Great!

However, after looking into it a bit more trying to gain more knowledge on its functionality, it turns out that it is a boost type charge controller.
More or less this will not work well to charge my 16.8 volt battery with the 30 volt solar panel that I already have.
It is meant to take a lower voltage panel and bump up the voltage to charge a higher voltage battery.

Unfortunately it does not state this anywhere in the listing where I bought it.
Fortunately it does not state this anywhere in the listing and can also be my excuse for why I am returning it.
Maybe.

It really does seem that no one makes a proper MPPT solar charge controller that has any adjustability for charging non LiFePO4 batteries.

At this time I do not have a solution.
This totally seems like a common thing and it really is shocking that no one has anything.

I could add more modules to my battery pack or buy some 12 volt solar panels but that's not really a cheap option.

There has to be a way to make this work and I am going to sort it out.
However, for now I am just going to carry on with my heater and battery pack build with the intent to just charge it from a 110 outlet.

Even if I have to take a tiny generator to run a little bit during the day to charge it, I guess that's what I will do.

Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:51 am

Thanks for taking us along on this project.

I like what you are trying to accomplish. :D