Charging 40v batteries with DIY solar? Hi everyone. Now I'm hooked on the fun of batteries and got thinking how cool it would be to recharge them with solar effectively...
NoBarracuda7 replied:
You can check out a 12-volt solar panel kit that includes panels and a battery controller, a deep cycle RV 12-volt battery, and a car charger specific to your brand of tool. All of these parts are available from amazon/home depot, you will have to do some research of correct solar panel size to charge a car battery in a reasonable amount of time. but the result should be a fully charged battery to charge your tool batteries at any point, as long as it has been sunny in the last couple days.
321Ben replied:
Harbor freight sells an inexpensive 100 Watt setup that you can find on sale around $150.
SebastianDoyle replied:
Look on renogy.com too. Their listings are more informative than amazon's.
psi- replied:
If you don't want to go soldering/electronics then this is ~minimum things that you would need:
- solar panel
- solar-battery charger
- battery (doesn't need to be "big" and f.ex bike battery would work okay but just won't last quite as long)
- inverter (battery DC -> AC)
- 40v charger specific for ryobi
Theoretically in very sunny (arizona) environment you could get by without separate battery, but I think "smarter" battery chargers don't like to work without battery. Also inverter will probably dislike random clouds chopping the available current (battery completely negates this).
Inverter can be the most expensive thing here, but it doesn't need to be large. Ryobi 40V quick charger only pulls 88W. The 150W inverters are usually a bit janky but should work ok.
I think Ryobi doesn't make 12V -> 40V charger, but that may exist, in that case you can skip the inverter completely (and it would be more energy efficient that way too, ~10%)