Yes, you will need a charge controller for your solar power system.
Pretty much, from this point on 90% of the so called homemade solar panel plans end. After you’ve finished reading more about charge controllers, blocking diodes, inverters, and battery banks, you’ll understand why we recommend the Earth4Energy Plans highly.
What a charge controller is and why you need one for your solar power system
From the minute you put your solar panels in the sun you a generating power from the sun, sounds great and it is. The problem comes when storing the energy, since you are sending power to the batteries anytime the sun is out, you run the risk of overcharging you batteries. That’s what a charge controller prevents.
Charge controllers are not toys, and for that reason we strongly recommend you pick up a complete solar panel guide that covers the subject properly, like the plans offered at Earth4energy.
This is what the inside of a charge controller looks like.
Lets take a closer look at how the charge controller will work in our system.
So, you have your panels wired up and your ready to hook them to the battery bank. This is the right time to add your charge controller. Hook wires from panel to charge controller then to the battery.
By setting it up this way, you are now putting a limit on the amount of power the battery bank can handle.
Oops almost forgot, you will need one more little part between the batteries and the solar panel, and that is a blocking diode (easy to install). A blocking diode prevents the batteries from sending power backwards to the solar panel.
This is a blocking diode for a solar panel.
That is really all there is to a charge controller and a blocking diode.
If your still not quite comfortable don’t worry too much since all this is covered in a quality set of plans.