Hi all
now i am currently in the process of making my own 12v solar charging station for my shed (lighting inside and outside at this stage), the only thing i am missing at this present stage is the charge controller as i don’t really want to buy one of those cheap Chinese controllers that say they are MPPT but are not and in fact PWM as i am sort of pushing the boundary’s of battery capacity. so after doing a bit of reading on a few websites including instructables i seen that someone had created a MPPT solar controller using the arduino uno but the system could only handle 50w max so what i am wondering is, is there anyway that i can make it handle more current then that or am i waisting my time by trying to create it
here is the website that i have been looking at
http://www.instructables.com/id/ARDUINO … ersion-30/
the other thing is that the reason i went with the arduino MPPT solar controller is i want to be able to upgrade it when i needed as well as learn a lot more about microcontrollers…
Most instructables are nonsense, or at least seriously misleading. This one is no exception.
Often the authors don’t understand enough to know what they are doing wrong. This guy, at least, admits that he doesn’t really understand what he is doing, for example
Note : Making a good inductor is not so simple.I am still in learning stage.If you are not so confident I will recommend to buy a ready made inductor.
In the above example, he is a using toroidal core but does not know for sure what the core material actually is. That can be a fatal mistake for a switching converter.
There are lots of other problems with the circuit design, so it is definitely not one to follow. Just take a look at the snubbing circuit across the inductor!
jremington:
Most instructables are nonsense, or at least seriously misleading. This one is no exception.
Often the authors don’t understand enough to know what they are doing wrong. This guy, at least, admits that he doesn’t really understand what he is doing, for example
Note : Making a good inductor is not so simple.I am still in learning stage.If you are not so confident I will recommend to buy a ready made inductor.
In the above example, he is a using toroidal core but does not know for sure what the core material actually is. That can be a fatal mistake for a switching converter.
There are lots of other problems with the circuit design, so it is definitely not one to follow. Just take a look at the snubbing circuit across the inductor!
Awesome, thank you 
yeah I wasn’t sure if this system would work either and there was a bloke on YouTube who was experimenting with the arduino and I could see inconsistencies in his design too but it seemed ligit.
Now…lol because I am on an extremely tight budget I am either looking for or wanting to make an mppt charger kit, something I could either put together and program or build up myself (with assistance of course) so I know exactly what’s going in to it and it’s not something someone is trying flog me as being an mppt and is actually a pwm.
Seen lots of people get burnt by this before by the Chinese.
Thanks again
I don’t think a homemade MPPT charger will make a large difference in the total energy captured by the system.
What will make a large difference (and this something that experienced DIYers can relatively easily accomplish) is to actively orient the panels to face the sun as it moves across the sky. A polar axis mount allows daily tracking with only infrequent adjustments for the season.