This is the ultimate solar panel controller for raspberry pi and arduino projects.
Solar charge controller raspberry pi.
Better to use µw with a small microcontroller.
Connecting the solar panel to the pi zero.
Or more accurately firmware that emulates their color control gx venus gx monitoring devices and it runs on a raspberry pi.
In this video i just quickly.
The pi consumes 5w or so and that is a lot of power to be wasting on a solar charge controller.
They re cheap and you can buy them anywhere.
I still think you should email the manufacturer of the solar charge controller to be sure you have the correct pinout of the 8 pin rj45 socket and the specification for the output voltage.
I chose an old raspberry pi model a because it doesn t consume very much electricity and although it s under powered it can easily handle the 2 tasks of serial communication and web serving.
I was able to make the raspberry pi communicate with the charge controller using the pymodbus library and a cheap usb to rs485 adapter.
However the pi zero needs only 1 1 5a so make sure to adjust accordingly.
This tutorial demonstrates how to use serial communication on a raspberry pi to connect to a solar charge controller and transmit the data using a python web.
The design is now mature and the high efficiency mppt solar charger is.
Look up the ucn2906 lead acid charge controller ic.
A few years ago lukas fässler needed a solar charge controller and made his own which he has been improving ever since.
Most solar panels in the market today are 9v.
These boards are designed with a lot of flexibility for you to innovate your design.
I think that a microcontroller is as is so often the case here a much better idea than using a pi.
The more popular raspberry pi 4 s supply is recommended to be at 5v 2 2 5a current.
My victron solar charge controller and victron battery monitor are bluetooth only.
Another thing you can do when you get another pi is to try a usb ttl serial adapter.
Buck regulator design isn t too difficult.
Custom system built for raspberry pi to visualize your solar installation and control it via mqtt.
They might not reply or they might say no but you should try.
I used one of these usb to rs485 adapters.
A venus gx costs nearly 300 and a raspberry pi costs about 30.
The charge controller is sold by multiple vendors such as ep solar sainsonic renogy etc.