Charging Circuit design Solar panel for a 12 V car battery

[Thrisk]

I am designing a Sun tracking Solar panel and wish to know how to get the sun's energy from my Solar panel to trickle charge the Car battery.
If anyone could provide a cicuit design it would be greatly appreciated.

Thankz

 

[Johnson777717]

Try this link and look under "Solar Power Schematics" There are a couple that are worth looking into. I've never built any of them, so I don't know how confident they are.

https://www.commlinx.com.au/schematics.htm

Also, check out this battery charging tutorial for Sealed Lead Acid battery charging. Definately some good info here if you have the time to read.

**broken link removed**

Good luck!

 

[Klaus]

You did not say what size solar panel you have. The smaller ones (<10W) can usually be connected directly to the battery as they are designed for trickle charging. Measure the maximum voltage at the panel (with no battery connected), if it is around 16-17V its a trickle charge panel. The bigger solar panels have more cells ( 36 against 30), have an open circuit voltage of >20V and need a regulator to manage the charging current.
Klaus