Solar Panel Inverter
Will my 18watt solar panel charge a car battery and how fast?
I wanna get a solar panel to charge 1 or 2 car batteries. Then connect the battery to a 800watt power inverter so that I can power a tv. Will the 18watt solar panel charge my batteries and around in how long?
I just wanna use the panel to charge the batteries, no to use the panel directly with my electronics. Thanks for your answer and help me with that.
welcome to the wonderfull world of solar!
you probably have a 12Vdc 18 Watt solar panel, to figure out its charging amps capability we do this equation
Watts/Volts=Amps
18watts/12Vdc=1.5Amps
this is a conservative figure, since solar panel ratings are calculated using winter time sunlight, sunny locations and more daytime hours will give you higher amps.
a typical good condition car battery is rated at 40Ah (Amp hours).to find out the charge time, we use the following formula;
Amp Hours/Amps=T where T is time in hours
40Ah/1.5A=26hours
this is charge for a single battery, two batteries will double to over 52 hours.
lets compare to charging a battery with your car, a car alternator puts out about 60 amps but usually run about half capacity.
40Ah/30amps=1.3Hours!
An alternator is far more efficient so charging with a small solar panel is best as an alternative or for low power applications.
As far as using an inverter to power a TV, we can calculate how long the battery will last by using the original formula.
a typical 19″tv will use 70 watts
70watts/12Vdc=5.8A
40Ah/5.8A=6.9hours
this figure is by drawing all the power from the battery, voltage inverters have a safety feature that will not let you discharge your battery all the way, so 40Ah battery will power a 19″ tv for about 4.5 to 5 hours.
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