When car camping I want to share my solar panels between running my refrigerator (12v, 50 watts) and charging my e-bike battery (for use in my yet to be assembled e-bike kit, and as rainy day backup for the refrigerator). For collecting firewood, I'd like to use a 120v electric chainsaw, as well as charge various cordless batteries. I've got a large 12v inverter that should be able to run anything that a typical 15amp circuit can handle, and to handle surge loads I'm planning on using a modest 12V deep cycle SLA battery.
I want a system that just works, rather than requires me to either monitor it and plug and unplug things, or else reconfigure things using a GUI. I've got experience in using Arduino and Raspberry Pi's for automation.
My initial thought was to just throw a bunch of MPPT's connected in parallel, with each MPPT handling a particular battery chemistry. And then implement a charging policy either by figuring out the Victron API's or just using relays to direct the PV array at its highest priority use.
However, I've heard both that this will cause problems with the various MPPT's fighting each other (from a Victron moderator) and that it works fine (from successful users).
Given my reasonable goals, what is an effective approach to this sort of problem?
Best regards,
Rich Dobbs
I want a system that just works, rather than requires me to either monitor it and plug and unplug things, or else reconfigure things using a GUI. I've got experience in using Arduino and Raspberry Pi's for automation.
My initial thought was to just throw a bunch of MPPT's connected in parallel, with each MPPT handling a particular battery chemistry. And then implement a charging policy either by figuring out the Victron API's or just using relays to direct the PV array at its highest priority use.
However, I've heard both that this will cause problems with the various MPPT's fighting each other (from a Victron moderator) and that it works fine (from successful users).
Given my reasonable goals, what is an effective approach to this sort of problem?
Best regards,
Rich Dobbs