Combination Converter / Solar Controller?

Depending on the solar setup, it might be possible to get a converter to work (at least to some extent) by feeding the solar panel voltage right into the high voltage capacitors at the switching regulator input. The solar panels would have to supply somewhere between maybe 100 and 200+ volts, depending on the design of the switching power supply of the converter. There would presumably be some additional design work and switching needed to prevent the solar panels and AC line power from being connected together improperly.

For a more typical lower voltage solar installation, there would not be much shared circuitry at all, and that which is shared (the control electronics mostly) is not the costly bits (the transformers and big capacitors and power semiconductors). Microcontrollers are quite inexpensive these days.

Hi,

There are a couple of inverter/chargers that do allow for solar input. I've not seen reviews of them, nor read their (often skimpy) manuals.

Yes, apples to oranges.
Besides that I've always hated combo units,....if one goes down, they all go down.
And when something give me trouble, I want to go right to the source of the problem, and just replace the much less expensive culprit, than to have to be down and out repairing an expensive combo unit.

Converters have a constant AC input rectified to DC for charging. The circuit that controls the charging is typically timer based. A solar charge controller has a dynamic DC supply and can be set for different amounts of charge voltage, along with different durations. Most good solar controllers also have a timer based "load" output. To make a converter do double duty also a solar charge controller would require all of the circuitry of a typical solar controller. There wouldn't be a lot of sharing for the different tasks.
I don't see any economy of function but there would be the elegance of just one housing.