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Please help with my solar energy installation?

I have a few volkswagen solar panels, those that they use to keep the batteries charged.
I´m planing to use them in combination with a car battery and a small power inverter with a timer to pump water only a couple of minutes a day to water my bonsais,
I have the panels, the battery, the timer, the power inverter and the pump,
What else do I need to make it work?
A friend told me that I have to prevent the energy from going back or something to shut off the timer when the batteries are charging. Thanks!

That’s a tricky question.

You are going to need one or more diodes connected between the PV panels and the battery, to prevent it from discharging through the panels when the lights are out.

A single car battery typically has a charging current of about 0.8-1 amp, and needs a charging bias of about 2.3-2.5 volts over the top of the battery’s voltage. I assume that since the originally intended purpose of your PV panels is for charging car batteries, that they are sized correctly in terms of voltage and current output.

The diode(s) is another matter. Here are the specifications you are going to want. I have added here an approximate fudge factor.
forward voltage : ~0.8v
reverse breakdown voltage: 30v
leakage current: micro-amp range
forward current: 2 amps. If you can’t find diodes this large(unlikely), you can just connect enough in parallel to get the current capacity you want.

Another problem, is the fact that the inverter will draw a small to moderate amount of current whenever it is switched on, even if the pump is not on. I am not sure how to solve this problem besides just physically turning the inverter off when it is not being used. This kind of defeats the purpose of having an automatic system though….

Mark’s idea of using a 12v dc pump and ignoring the battery and inverter altogether, is a good one.

You might want to talk to a bona fide electrical engineer in RL, and ask him what his opinion is. Electrical engineering is not my specialty……

Good luck with your project
~Donkey Hotei.

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