Home brew Arduino MPPT controller

[HiTech]

Pretty cool project. Highly programmable. He does not list the amps it is capable of but I'm thinking 4-8 only based on the diode sizing.

There are some very sophisticated MPPT algorithms out there, but it seems like a lot of the typical commercial units use pretty simplistic hill climbimg logic or even simple closed loop circuits (bad for multiple peak voltage systems like you might get with a panel in the shade and another in the sun) or a 76% of Voc fixed ratio where the panels are taken off line to measure Voc and then voltage is just nailed to 76% of Voc (not horribly far off on average for a single panel, but IFF that panel is around 80% Voc for Mpp under most conditions).

The fancier code is used in solar race cars and more advanced systems and includes fuzzy logic, neural nets and more.

A platform like this would enable trying out lots of approaches.

MPPT Project

Jim

[mlts22]

Call me crazy, but I wish supercap tech would get to a point where I could put one between the MPPT controller and the batteries. It would then act as a buffer, where the MPPT controller can be far less precise getting current into the cap because of the ability for capacitors to accept lots of amps in a short time, and the charger using the cap's electricity can be fairly simple, not having to be concerned about the individual panel voltages and watt outputs.