![]() Once you’ve entered the above info, click “Calculate Solar Panel Size” to get an estimate of what size panel you need to charge your 12V battery at your desired speed. Desired Charge Time (in peak sun hours): How quickly do you want your solar panel to charge your battery, in peak sun hours?.Solar Charge Controller Type: Will you be using a PWM or MPPT solar charge controller?.Battery Depth of Discharge (DoD): What level of discharge is your battery at? 100% means fully discharged and 0% means fully charged.Battery Type: Is your battery a lead acid or lithium (LiFePO4) battery?.Battery Amp Hours (Ah): What is your battery’s capacity in amp hours? (If you only know its capacity in watt hours, first convert watt hours to amp hours).Battery Voltage (V): What is your battery’s voltage? We’ve gone ahead and entered 12 volts already, but you can always change it if your battery has a different voltage.To find out what size solar panel you need to charge your 12V battery, you’ll need to enter the following info into our solar panel size calculator at the top of this page: What Size Solar Panel to Charge 12V Battery? The solar charge controller is the only load connected to the battery.Note: If you already have a solar panel size in mind and want to estimate how long it will take to charge your battery, check out our solar panel charge time calculator. Increase your desired charge time and try again. The typical absorption time for batteries is around hours, which is greater than (or equal to) your desired charge time. Some are sophisticated enough to adjust the operating point of the panels for maximum efficiency and other such neat stuff.Error: We estimate that it is impossible to charge your battery this quickly. Such a device will take care of monitoring the charge on the batteries, being sure to not damage them, preventing reverse current, etc. It's basically the most common thing to do with solar panels. There are, of course, no shortage of commercial products designed to charge batteries with solar panels. ![]() Usually this accomplished with a series diode. You also want to make sure that when there is not enough sun on the solar panel, and thus its voltage is lower than the battery, that the solar panel doesn't become the load, with the battery driving a (potentially very large and destructive) current through the panel. If you charge a battery too fast, or too much, with those limits depending on the particular battery and specified in the datasheet, it will be damaged, destroyed, explode, or otherwise bad things will happen. Of course, you have to make sure this current is within the operating parameters of the battery. If something else (like your solar panel) can apply a voltage higher than the battery, then the battery becomes "the load", and current will flow through it in the other direction, reversing the redox reaction inside it, storing electric energy from the solar panel as chemical energy in the battery. Under normal operation, where the battery is powering a load, conventional current flows inside the battery from (-) to (+), through the load, and back to the battery. This is the opposite of drawing power from it. Charging is, by definition, putting power into the battery. If by "use the battery" you mean "draw power from the battery while charging it?" then no. If by "use the battery" you mean "can the battery be in the circuit?" then yes.
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