Running a lithium charger and solar panel through a PWM charge controller??

[grizzzman]

I have run a switching power supply through a quality PWM SCC. What I found was the controller ran hotter then on solar panels.

 

[Eviper21]

I have run a switching power supply through a quality PWM SCC. What I found was the controller ran hotter then on solar panels.

Gotcha. Thanks for the input! I'll probably just run two different ports just in case

 

[fratermus]

I have run a switching power supply through a quality PWM SCC. What I found was the controller ran hotter then on solar panels.

Thanks for the report. Heat from doing more switching, I suppose. Did you set the supply output to some particular voltage at/above the charging voltage or was it a fixed-voltage supply?

I've run a 24v power supply into an MPPT controller without apparent issues (poor man's converter, I see Will does this on his indoor testing videos). The controller mfg recommended 22v input so I set the power supply to that. I'm away from grid power now and so use that little MPPT to run portable panels.

 

[grizzzman]

Thanks for the report. Heat from doing more switching, I suppose. Did you set the supply output to some particular voltage at/above the charging voltage or was it a fixed-voltage supply?

I've run a 24v power supply into an MPPT controller without apparent issues (poor man's converter, I see Will does this on his indoor testing videos). The controller mfg recommended 22v input so I set the power supply to that. I'm away from grid power now and so use that little MPPT to run portable panels.

The extra heat is very likely the switching supply. I ran a small pc fan to control the heat. In my case the voltage needed to be above 15 volts to get any meaningful amps.

 

[pollenface]

I've run a 24v power supply into an MPPT controller without apparent issues (poor man's converter, I see Will does this on his indoor testing videos). The controller mfg recommended 22v input so I set the power supply to that. I'm away from grid power now and so use that little MPPT to run portable panels.

I've done the same thing, an 18v psu into the mppt input of a vehicles dc-dc charger to keep things topped up while away for work (2wks at a time).