Plasmatronics was established in 1985 and they proudly design and manufacture their product in Australia.Īs one of the earliest designers and builders of Solar Power Regulators in the world, Plasmatronics Pty Ltd is the preferred choice for Remote systems throughout Australia. Plasmatronics is an Australian company which specialises in the design and manufacture of electronic regulating and metering devices for solar power systems.
With a series regulated system (like the Plasmatronics regulators), the system can be kept running by connecting the panels directly to the battery and manually regulating. high voltage panels and lower voltage battery). due to lightning) since the panels and battery are not matched (e.g. The other issues with MPPT (particularly for boats at sea) is that it’s not always easy to bypass the regulator should a fault occur (e.g. The hotter the panels become –the maximum power point voltage decreases and gets close to a typical battery voltage, therefore wiping out most (if not all) the gain an MPPT unit will give.
How many hours during the day do your panels work at 25☌ or less ?!). on a motorhome you may want to use some uncommon, high output panels since the roof space is limited).īe aware that the % gains claimed for MPPT (other than the above couple of examples) are not likely to be ‘real world’ (e.g. Other than that, MPPT is useful if you don’t want to (or can’t) match the panel specifications to the battery (e.g. MPPT is good if you need to run cables from an array over a long distance as it allows you to string the panels together in series to make higher voltage panel strings (therefore lower power loss due to cable resistance, because of lower currents). However when charging a 12v battery from a 12v solar panel, these gains are not present so an MPPT regulator in this scenario is unnecessary. Under SPECIFIC conditions, an MPPT can have more efficiency % gains than a PWM regulator can. The MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) vs PWM (Pulse width Modulation) question is not always straight forward as it very much depends on the conditions under which charging is taking place. Pulse width modulation (PWM) and maximum power point tracker (MPPT) technologies are more electronically sophisticated, adjusting charging rates depending on the battery's level, to allow charging closer to its maximum capacity. Some charge controller systems also display data, transmit data to remote displays, and data logging to track electric flow over time.
Some charge controllers / solar regulators have additional features, such as a low voltage disconnect (LDV), a separate circuit which powers down the load when the batteries become overly discharged (some battery chemistries are such that over-discharge can ruin the battery).Some charge controllers may also monitor battery temperature to prevent overheating. To avoid this, some sort of charge regulator / solar regulator is used to stop the charging when the battery is full. If this continues, the battery will become overcharged and be damaged by corrosion of it's plates and loss of electrolyte. If you are putting in more energy than you are taking out, then the battery will eventually become fully charged. If you leave the photovoltaic panel connected to a battery, the battery will slowly charge up. This simple picture is complicated by the limitations of the battery. The battery allows you to collect energy when the sun is shining and store it until needed. You have a device which converts sunlight into electrical energy (a photovoltaic panel or 'solar panel') and this is used to charge up a battery. Solar electric power systems are essentially very simple. Solar Regulators What are Solar Regulators / Solar Charge Controllers?