wind gen and solar panels

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spidy

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I have a rutland 910 with regulator and 60 watts of solar panels with regulator can i join them and send the power down through my split charger diode to charge all 3 battery banks. at the moment its all seperate wind to one 40w solar to two and 20w to number three battery bank ,number 1 is110amp (start) number 2 is 180amp (domestic) number 3 is 255amp (windlass, fridge, night heater.)any idears please /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
We have the output of 4 X solar panels (128 Ah) to a buss bar terminal which feeds our 420 Ah domestic bank. We then have the domestic bank wired to the windlass battery through a Xantrex Echocharge Unit (Merlin Equipment)(no commercial connection apart from being a satisfied customer) which feeds a 90Ah battery dedicated to the windlass. Have you thought of switching your number 2 and number 3 banks and putting all loads, apart from the windlass, on the number 2 bank. Don't worry too much about the engine battery charge - you probably have a set-up whereby the alternator charge goes to that first and only diverts to the domestic bank when the engine battery reaches a certain charge. Also, if you have an emergency parallel switch facility, you can always use your domestic bank for engine start anyway.
 
You certainly can with something like this:

http://www.marlec.co.uk/products/windchargers/windcharger-controllers/hrdx-charge-controller/

And another vote for the Echocharge which I use for a windlass battery in the bow. You could do worse than phoning Merlin and talking through what you've got - they are normally pretty helpful.

You may be able to do what you want simply plugging everything together, but i think you need diodes and to be careful of overcharging etc - which is where my understanding starts to get a bit vague - so I bough the box that said it took care of all that for me !
 
As previous post suggests there are plenty of regulators that will control both wind and solar but I do not think you can put the output through a split charge diode. The regulators output either a set voltage or a series of set voltages designed to optimise battery charging, most diodes cause a voltage drop which would negate all the clever regulation and never fully charge your batteries. Regulators are available that take multiple inputs incuding alternator and output them to multiple battery banks but they are very costly.
 
The rutland HRDX is controller that will accept the input from solar panels (up to 100watts IIRC) and a wind turbine but as far as I remember it has only one output it may be two but I am pretty sure not 3 .... but check. Off hand I cannot think of one that does have three but there probably are such devices out there somewhere.

Worth checking some of the stuff Sterling offer.

The alternative may be a charging system for batteries 2 and 3 based on Voltage sensitive relays (VSRs) but manufacturers of diode splitters will tell you why VSRs are no good while conversely manufacturers of VSRs will explain the short comings of diode splitters!

Pretty certain that the HRDX requires diodes in the feeds from the solar panel(s) (to prevent the wind turbine output partly going to waste through the panel(s)) unless they have diodes built in. The volts drop there is no a great concern although you would not want to fit a diode if the panel already has one. Panels without diodes on the other hand do give you the option to use Schottky diodes.

Unless you have your alternator set up with battery sensing you are selling yourself short on battery charging from the alternator using a simple diode split charging system by virtue of the volts drop associated with them.
 
As Mr Elephant says diode splitting after the regulator is no good. The regulator ensures that the supplied voltage is limited to 14volts but the diodes will reduce this by .7 volt which makes a lot of difference to charge in battery. (not enough)
So for the solar you need either a regulator with multiple outputs one for each isolated battery; or diode splitting then a regulator for each battery.
However it is possible that with limited solar power and big batteries you do not need the regulator for solar. Just use splitting diodes to each battery. The solar is unregulated which means it would deliver 20 volts to the battery if it could, so loss of .7 volt is no problem. The 20 volts is reduced to the battery voltage by the current flow. (or the internal resistance of the panel causes voltage to fall with current flow.)
Provided this doesn't boil the batteries too much the current is OK even when batteries are fully charged. About max 5% of battery AH rating might be a good limit. ie 60w of solar will give max 3 amps so any battery total more than 60AH will not be harmed by continuous charging of solar.(bigger batteries even safer) You can just parallel the 2 solar panels without concern or isolate with another 3 diodes. Diodes can be any silicon diode rated for 5 amps or more and will cost a few pence each.
The wind gen if it has 3 outputs can be connected to all 3 batteries or to just the most used battery if only one output.(or fit a VSR to connect batteries together when being charged) It will tend throttle back the charge if it sees the solar raising the battery voltage and charge to near 14v. I don't think it is practical to use diodes on the wind gen as the voltage will already be regulated to 14v so diode loss will be unacceptable. olewill
 
Hi Vic did you just post or did I miss your wisdom. If a panel has a diode it is often mounted in a junction box at the panel. In this case it is easy to connect another one or 2 diodes from the panel itself to another 2 output wires. In other words you use the existing diode but add more as alternative current paths. (so no additional voltage loss)
If it is not possible to access the panel diode I think it OK to use additional diodes.to isolate the batteries. There will be an additional .7 volt drop so if it has a built in diode you lose 1.4 volts from the solar output voltage. But considering output voltage no load is usually 18 to 20 volts then there is not a great loss. Perhaps at the very low light limits of the panels ability to supply. Yes of course schotky diodes would theoretically be better but in this case no significant improvement. IMHO olewill
 
Jan
Further to previous posts Marlec have a new regulator HRDi which will take your wind and solar up to 160w, charge 2 banks and also monitors amperage in and battery voltage. I would be tempted also to omit engine battery. Specs not up on web yet.
 
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